Justice and Mercy

Justice: the administering of deserved punishment or reward.

Mercy: compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence

I have another blog that I have been working on. The one I promised on Monday about our vacation. Our internet was in an out all day yesterday. It was never in enough to finish the blog. So I will do it tomorrow.

Today we went to court for our dog, Ranger, so I thought I'd update you on that really quick.

Court was difficult for me. I would like to see both justice and mercy in this case. How to do that is a balance. Today was about the dog owner - I'll call her D - pleading guilty or not guilty. I guess it was never really clear whether we needed to be there or not but we went anyway and I think it was fine that we did.

We were to be there at 8:30 when they started going through cases but the ADA did not talk to us until probably 10 or so. The ADA was an old youth kid - totally a God thing. We were able to talk to him as a lawyer and a friend. It was really nice.

I shared with him that we'd like to see our vet bills paid (although at this time we aren't sure exactly what the total cost will be) and the dogs dealt with to make sure that they aren't able to harm the Blegers or anyone else for that matter. Most likely that means they will be destroyed which is sad to me but I do understand that it may be necessary. He went and met with D and then came back and said that she's plead guilty and would like to take care of our bills. She is not ready to put the dogs down - which I can understand.

We met with D and she was very emotional and remorseful (at least it seemed that way to me). I felt bad for her. We lost one dog and it was horrible. I can't imagine how it would feel to be responsible for that and then to know that it is very possible to lose both of her dogs. Yes, she was irresponsible in the owning, guarding and containing of her dogs - and I do want to see justice for that - but I do not see a need to pursue anything further with them. D deserves mercy just like anyone else. I don't like what happened but nothing else I can do will bring back our dog or reverse this whole horrible ordeal.

So as it stands now we will need to meet with a mediator and D to see if there is another solution other than destroying the dogs. At this point I'm not sure what that will be. Maybe there's something we haven't thought of but truthfully I don't know how she can guarantee that her dogs will never do this again. She didn't think they would do it this first time. But we will meet with them and see if there is another way. Then we meet with the judge on July 30th {my birthday -- happy birthday to me :) } to present our arguments then the judge will decide what will happen to the dogs.

I told D that since both sides were so emotionally involved in this that I would trust the judge to make a fair decision. We can both present our sides and then respect the judges decision. Although I sure hope that if the dogs aren't destroyed that they are moved far away from the Blegers. I can't imagine living in fear of going outside your home or letting your kids play outside. Those 2 dogs caused enough injuries to kill our 80# dog. I can't even begin to think what they could do to a child. And that is what concerns me the most and what I want justice for.

So that's where we stand. I'd rather just be done with it. The animal shelter called me today to say that Ranger's ashes and his collar were ready to be picked up. I asked Mark to go. I do not like going there for any reason really. My sisters joke with me that I'm an animal hater and I joke with them that I'm not an animal hater but a child lover - meaning I don't have the time or the emotional energy with 3 littles to give a pet tons of attention. Ranger and Obi (our cat) are definitely family members and I love them but my kids have to be my top priority so it may sound that I don't really dig animals. But truthfully I love animals and don't like to see any hurt or die. Going to the shelter has always been hard for me - even before kids - because I hated to see animals abandoned and desperate for a home. I knew I couldn't help them so it just made me cry. Now to go and have to pick up my dogs ashes was more than I could handle. Poor Mark has to do it.

Well that's the story here as it stands. I will update more when we have our mediation and then our next court appearance. And I will hopefully have more happy and funny stories from our vacation for you tomorrow!

National Lampoon's.....

National Lampoon's Vacation is the only movie I can think of off the top of my head that sort of describes our vacation. So many little things happened that it was comical.

First off I'll tell you that our original trip was planned for Omaha, NE. My grandpa has had season tickets to the college world series forever and we've only been once since we've been married. Plus this was the last year at Rosenblatt Stadium. So we were all looking forward to going and catching a few games.

Monday before we left (we were planning on leaving on Thursday) my parents called to say that that Cathy (the woman whose house we were staying at - some great friends) had had a stroke. The last thing she needed was to have her house taken over by 10 people (my family, my parents, my sister Kelly and my brother and his girlfriend). And I agreed. Since it was the world series there weren't hotel rooms available and the family we have that live there just don't have the room for all of us Coloradans. So we decided to not go to Omaha. We were bummed but almost immediately we felt the stress go way down. As much as we wanted to go, once we decided not too, we realized how stressful it'd been. So much so that even though there were a couple bedrooms offered to us on Wednesday we still decided to not go this year. Things were crazy before we left and it was going to be crazy when we got home (obviously we had no idea about Ranger....). So we chose to stay in Denver and just have fun up there.

So we left Friday morning so we could take our time driving up. I decided not to begin our vacation with me taking Jack and Kate to Dairy Queen the night before and Kate having a fit about ice cream. I figured who really wants to hear about that!?

Anyway, 30 minutes into the drive Jack pooped. And so began the long trip up. One with Jack pooping at least every hour and us pulling over to change his diaper. By about Wolf Creek (the first big mountain pass about an hour into it) we caught up with the Ride the Rockies group. These are crazy bicyclists who ride their bikes all over Colorado. This year they started in Grand Junction, rode down to Durango, over to Monte Vista and up to Salida where they finished. So crazy to me. Mark's own personal hell.

We literally followed bicyclists for 2 hours - slow going - over the pass (where we stopped to change another diaper...), down the other side and all the way to Del Norte. I don't know how much more time that added. They were riding in the right lane so there wasn't any passing room and you obviously had to be very cautious.

We didn't stop for lunch because I had brought a lot of food in coolers. Unfortunately the kids were not impressed with my selection even though they were with me when I bought it. *sigh*

We got to Denver in the afternoon and had a good time hanging out with my mom and my sister Meghan. Although that night Meghan's basement flooded so she had to spend a bunch of time cleaning up water, moving furniture, ripping out carpet and cleaning things up.

Saturday I believe was the lazy day. We just rested from our trip up. Oh and Meghan's dog, Cutler (I call him Cutler-something-is-always-wrong-with-me-Leadford) had a deer tick. A huge deer tick! About the size of Mark's pinky nail. Big for a tick. It'd been there a while eating nicely. So we had an adventure getting out the tick. I'm serious. This vacation was full of these kinds of stories!

On Sunday we visited my brother's girlfriend's (Sarah) church, Red Rocks. It was great. The pastor spoke on nutrition and honoring God with our bodies. It was very unconventional but very good at the same time. Both Mark and I were challenged. After church we had lunch with my aunt and uncle and grandma. Good to see family. Oh yes and I believe this was the day my parent's air conditioner started leaking...It was also Father's Day. The kids got Mark a card and Just Dance for the Wii. The game got a lot of use while in Denver. You should see Mark dance to Cotton-eyed Joe!

Monday we decided to meet up with Mark's brother, Chad, and his wife, Alisha, and go to the Children's Museum. We got up and got ready. I burned the snot out of my upper arm with my curling iron. Nice job. The medicine I put on it made it look like an enormous bruise. Disgusting.

Once we got there we waited for Chad and Alisha in the firetruck room. They have this life-size firetruck that the kids can climb all over and inside and drive and turn on the lights and a quiet siren. There are fireman dress-up clothes and a hose they can play with. They loved it. Especially Jack. And I'm about to tell you just how much Jack loved it. (sorry for the phone pics - forgot the good camera...of course...)

Once Chad and Alisha got there we headed upstairs (where most of the exhibits are) and played in the dress-up room. The kids were running around, dancing and dressing up. Having a blast. I turned to Chad and told him I was going to run to the bathroom. When I came out I asked Mark where Jack was and he said he thought he was with me. Uh no. He did not accompany me to the potty.

So the frantic search for Jack began. The next thing we hear is the loudspeaker. A woman from the museum wanted to let the parents of the child in the green shirt (yeah, that would be Jack) know that he was safe with a museum employee and could we please come pick him up from the front desk. Seriously?! Oh yes, we are those parents and Jack is that kid...And that kid had climbed down a flight of stairs and went back to the firetruck and was driving it when he was caught unsupervised. Oh my golly.

We retrieve Jack, have a calm down session and return to normal children's museum activities. Sort of. We visited the art room, the bubble room, the train room and the put together everything from recyclables room (don't remember the real name).

The kids climbed and played and had a blast. And really so did the adults. Then we decided to go get some food. Our next adventure.

I don't know any place to eat in downtown Denver so I called Meghan and had her be my GPS. She was going to direct us to the Old Chicago. Yum! Well at one point she wanted me to turn left but I couldn't get on the street she was telling me to without pulling a U-turn so I went up to the nearest light to turn around. I got to the light and it turned red so of course I stopped (Chad was following me) only to realize I had stopped on the light-rail tracks (new since the last time I was in Denver!). Yes I know not to stop on train tracks but I didn't realize I was on them till I stopped. I started to reverse then looked out the passenger window and saw a train coming. Looked out my driver's side window and saw another train coming. Both were blaring their horns at the dumb mini-van driver who stopped on the tracks. I yelled at Mark to yell at Chad to BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP! OR WE'RE GONNA BE HIT BY 2 TRAINS! Luckily Mark was on the phone with Chad and we backed up just in time. *double big sigh* My options were to back up, get hit by 2 trains or pull into traffic. So thankful I could back up!

Talk about heart racing! We finally made our way to Old Chicago and by this time I was so frazzled I said we're parking in that parking garage and I don't care if it costs our mortgage payment I am NOT driving around looking for a parking space!!!! So we did.

Lunch was good. It was fun to hear about Chad and Alisha's vacation to Fiji. Yeah I know. They go to Fiji and swim with sharks and do a zip line and we almost get hit by a light-rail in Denver....on our vacation...Oh the glamor that is our lives... We lived vicariously through them. And truly we enjoyed listening to stories. Fiji sounds wonderful!

Needless to say by the time we got home I had a headache and had to lay down.

My dad and Kelly came home that night then the ladies of the family went to Holy Yoga over at the church we attended on Sunday. Yoga with scripture. It was really fun!

So let me recap for you the first 4 days of our vacation: change of plans, poop, bicyclists, poop, starve on the drive, poop, deer tick, flooded basement, church, lunch, broken AC, Just Dance, burn, loose Jack, find Jack, almost hit by light-rail, Fiji vs Denver, Old Chicago, headache, family and Holy Yoga. And yet there's more to come tomorrow since this post is entirely too long!

Where do I start?

I guess I start by saying that we've been on vacation. I hate writing that we're going on vacation before we actually leave. It seems so weird to me to announce that my house will be vacant...

Anyway, we just got back from one of the most interesting and crazy vacations we've ever had I think. Think National Lampoons vacation...We had some highs - some wonderful times - and we had some lows - some real lows. I have lots of them to share but I have to start with the worst news we got while in Denver.

I haven't blogged much about our 2 1/2 year old little brown hoover we call Ranger. Truth be told he and I are not best of friends. I love the crazy little/giant dog but with 3 small children he's one more thing. But he's grown on me. Literally he went from a tiny little pound puppy to a giant 80# energetic, excitable, lovable, goofy dog.

How can you not love this face?

See?! Here he is with his little brown pound puppy. So while we were gone he was staying at our friend's house - The Blegers. These people love our dog like he was theirs. When they dog-sit for us I always ask if they're sure. He's a handful. But a lovable handful :) They always reply yes absolutely! It's nice to know he's very well taken care of while we're gone.

We got a call Wednesday night from them telling us that Ranger had been attacked by 2 pit bulls and was at the animal shelter getting worked on. From what we've been told about the whole situation, Ranger was in their fenced in yard minding his own business. The pit bulls broke down a weaker part of the fence and attacked him. Two neighbors heard the attack and came to try and rescue him. They beat off the pit bulls and called animal control.

Animal control came and took Ranger in and they treated him. I talked to the vet that night and he said Ranger was doing alright. He was torn up on his front and hind legs but didn't appear to have any internal injuries and his face was just scratched. We were relieved.

Thursday morning we talked to the vet and he said again that everything seemed to be good. He expected that Ranger could go home with the Blegers that night.

Then Thursday afternoon the vet called back and told me that Ranger had been doing better, was up walking around even, and then collapsed and had a seizure. They weren't able to save him. We were shocked to say the least. We had been thinking he was going to be fine.

The animal control officer in charge of our case called me and talked to me about pressing charges against the owners of the pit bulls. We will have to go to court sometime in the future.

This has all been so weird. As much as I would joke about Ranger, he made me feel safer. He was a great protector, a great food cleaner-upper, a very sweet and lovable dog. When we got home tonight from our trip it was strange to not be greeted by him. Tiffany wrote a very sweet blog about this today. If you have a minute you need to head over there and read it. Made me cry.

I really am going to miss him.

In the past 5 days....

... I

*have made and eaten yummy enchiladas!

*planted tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapenos, bell peppers and strawberries in my garden.

*have gone to Farmington and waited for over an hour to eat at Olive Garden with some great people that I don't hang out with all the time. It was really fun.

*spoke about God's crazy love for me at the women's breakfast on Saturday morning.

*helped plan, prepare and participated in a dear friend's going away party.

*watched The Time Traveler's Wife. Don't ever need to see that one again. So strange...

*went to church, loved on toddlers, went to a Children's ministry meeting then took kids home for a nap while Mark went to another meeting.

*napped.

*went to book club and hung out with some amazing women and discussed many, many things and a bit of the book :)

*went grocery shopping with my children (always an adventure).

*took Kale to Sports Camp then spent the rest of the evening with just Jack. So fun to hang out with my little man one on one.

*woke up to Jack and his bed covered in poop. Ugh!

*went to lunch at a park with another group of wonderful ladies and some of their children.

*got the tires changed on my van.

*got stressed out with Jack (not an uncommon occurrence).

*took Kale to Tball and watched him hit the tar out of the ball! He also took a ball in the nose during warm ups. Not fun for him.

*took Kale back to Sports Camp and took remaining two cranky children home for baths to wash off the coat of dirt they had in their hair and put them down for much needed sleep.

*started a non-fiction book that is by far stranger than fiction.

*thought about blogging but didn't have the time to sit and post anything.

*dealt with fits and screaming.

*was challenged to love people as Christ has loved me.

*have done ump-teen loads of laundry, half of which is in suitcases and the other half still on the couch waiting to be dealt with.

*watched a couple episodes of Bones while folding said laundry.

*have said goodbye/see-you-later to a very wonderful and close friend.

*was planning on a vacation to Omaha to watch the College World Series and had that change at the last minute.

*now am working on planning another needed vacation.

*have dreamed about a vacation to a beach somewhere to sleep...

*have been blessed by and thankful for, my family.

*have probably forgotten some important things I've done in the past 5 days....

Have you ever...

...read this book?

We did! Yes in my last post this was in fact the book that I was reading to my children (thanks Kim). A book about animal poop. Of course we'd read about poop!

We also own this book. It's about a little mole who got pooped on and his journey of discovery as he asks all the farm animals if it's their poop.
And who can go through life without reading this one? Another one on our poop reading list.
Seriously. I bet you wish you were around our house during reading time!

On another note, we planted our vegetable [and one fruit] garden today. I'm praying like mad that they'll live. I'm concerned about deer, bugs, rabbits, cats, dogs and children. If my tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, yellow peppers and strawberries live this year you will be able to hear my screams echoing off the La Plata mountains! Be sure and listen carefully....

Tomorrow is another busy day. I am speaking at our women's ministry prayer breakfast and helping throw a going away party for our friend Jinny {who's moving to Nebraska so she can meet her a cornhusker-man -- ok not really. Going to be a children's pastor at the Rock church -- but maybe she'll meet her a big-strong-cornhusker-man -- just sayin'}.

Sunday is church, meeting after church, and book club Sunday night. Then sports camp starts. Sports camp is a really great children's program that our church does instead of VBS. Kids come to the camp each night from 5-8 and learn sports like soccer, basketball, football, cheerleading and volleyball and of course hear about Jesus. Kale did it last year and has been counting down the days to this year's camp. He loves it.

So yet again we are busy little beavers - who pray for our garden to live!

Thankful Thursday -- still camping :)

Since I have a few more pictures that Kim took to post, I thought I'd combine it with Thankful Thursday. Cause in looking through the pictures I see many things to be thankful for.

I'm thankful...

...for a play tea set. Hours of fun and entertainment!

..for curious and hungry toddlers

...for good friends who'll play cards and pirates at the same time with my children

...for our little family

...for my awesome husband and son.

...for lovely pictures of me.... (I looked confused - I guess I was a bit intimidated to be in charge of driving this thing!)

...for sweet Marilyn who took such good care of all of us this weekend.

...for big boys to teach my big boy about boy stuff

...and for this sweet girl to show my sweet girl that girls can do anything!

My sweet children

The pictures today are the ones Mark took of the beauty around us as well as in our family :)

Buddies

Hold my hands like this?

Say what?

My serious, yet silly, little man.

Love them!