Ash--2006-2009

Ash was killed by a car yesterday on Highway 89 near our home in Indianola. It appeared that she was killed instantly and didn’t suffer at all. Our pack is a little smaller and a lot sadder today.

What follows are a few of our more fond memories, along with a few photos and videos of her.



Ash used to love watching me cook in the kitchen. One day I was cooking and in the course of what I was doing I opened the oven. For some reason it got her attention. I wondered why. I asked her as a joke “You wanna get in the oven?” At this she jumped with excitement, like I was offering her the most incredible adventure imaginable. For days afterward, the question induced the same excitement. It was so funny. When we told John about it he taunted her with it for months with the same joke.

Ash relished food so much that it was a joy to save little treats for her when we’d eat out. We’d take home fries, or even a cheeseburger. She didn’t exactly savor it, horking it down before we could finish saying “go for it.” I can’t help but think she just relished the anticipation.



In spite of her love for scraps and human food, she had a rather sensitive system. Once we made the mistake of buying a huge Costco bag of food for her. We accidentally bought the weight control formula, which was high in fiber. After only a day of eating it, she had terrible diarrhea.

Ash with diarrhea felt a little like feeding an infant late at night. We’d wake up in the dead of the night to her insistent, urgent whines. I’d get up, muttering, slip on my robe and slippers to take her out, wondering all the while if it’s really my turn or if Amy should do it this time. Instead of following her around while she searched for a spot to go, like normal, I just let her off her leash. She'd run off across the grass, sniffing furiously for a suitable spot, take care of business, and come right back when I called, even if that call was only a whisper.

We ended up giving the food away on Craigslist. We had to stick with Purina One or nothing. Of course, she had to have expensive taste. She always had a little bit of a princess in her.




Her name suited her. She was named for a dog in a book called Deerskin by Robin McKinley. She comforts the heroine of the book through difficult times. Ash did that for both of us.



When Amy found Ash, our marriage was in real trouble. We had been right on the brink of divorce right around that time. Ash gave us something to love and work on together, training her and enjoying her little personality in our lives. Amy says during that time she would hold Ash on her lap and just cry. She was always so affectionate and sensitive to our needs. Even when I was angry or upset about something she didn’t get scared; she’d come over to me and put her chin on my lap and look at me with those irresistible eyes of hers. She helped bring us back together by helping us see in each other the things that made us want to get married in the first place.




Ash was a peaceful, loving influence in our home, and that’s what we will miss the most. It’ll be impossible to completely replace her. She was one of a kind.

In loving memory,

2006-2009

-Tom

The Bread Box Bakery Grand Opening

Mom had the grand opening for her bakery in Fairview today. She's been working at getting it ready to open for a few months now, so she was thrilled to finally open her doors to the public. She sold out of all of her bread, cookies, cinnamon rolls, spudnuts, and other baked goods before closing time, so all of the food was a hit. We went over there right after closing time to take a look and help straighten up a little bit, and even then people were showing up every few minutes to check the place out and see what she had to sell. We hope for her sake that business will keep up and she can keep up with business. Congratulations, Mom!

-Amy

New Website Launches

Tom's freelance writing business kicked into high gear today with the launch of his new website. Feel free to check it out and keep him in mind the next time you have content that needs to be written, revised, or looked over.

Kudos to Jeff Spaulding for a great job with the site design! We'd recommend his services to anyone who has need of a designer in the future.

See you at tgunnwriter.com!

Rednecks Find Luck On St. Patrick's Day

The rednecks were indeed lucky: lucky they didn't get kicked out of the place: lucky nobody called animal control: lucky alcohol wasn't being served or they would have been lucky nobody ended up arrested or in the emergency room.

Such was our night at Chateau Brickyard's St. Patrick's Day family dinner. Grandpa's been doing well since he moved in there. The staff is very friendly and accommodating. These two strengths became weaknesses last Tuesday.

Grandpa's French-themed assisted living facility likes to roll out the red carpet for the families of their residents, especially on holidays. The only reason I can fathom they do this is to keep the monthly checks rolling in from the people that are probably at least helping to pay the rent.

Christmas was quite an affair. The dinner was hearty and well prepared. The place was decorated like a department store. They even offered valet parking. Since this was a St. Patrick's day dinner, everything accordingly was less lavish. Instead of about a dozen different desserts to choose from there were two, and one of them involved a certain crunchy rice cereal with generous amounts of green food coloring.

Don't get me wrong. It's great that they encourage visits from residents' families. We probably don't see Grandpa as often as we should, but a free meal never hurts.

We apparently weren't the only ones who thought so. Two of the residents' guest groups made up about ninety percent of the people there. They dominated huge swaths of the room, including the one in which we were sitting. Leprechaun-sized redneck larvae in green light-up necklaces and green hair dye ran among the tables while their parents ordered free adult-sized meals for them. It's a wonder they didn't run out of food.

What took the cake for me was when a woman who came in holding a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms turned out to be carrying a baby goat.

Bottom line; at least two families got a massive family reunion fully catered for free, complete with table service. Good thing they didn't have a see-ment pond or the kids might have been defecating in it.



Shortly after we finished eating, Grandpa invited us upstairs to chat with him for a while. We went up and had a nice chat (he's doing great, by the way). In spite of missing a raffle, I was glad for his suggestion. It was getting pretty loud and unpleasant in the dining room.

Other people thought so too, apparently. On our way out I heard a resident venting her frustrations on the bewildered manager who had recently found himself and his senior staff playing nanny to the horde of bratty kids. It was a circus complete with a petting zoo.

It's nice to visit grandpa. It's nice to get a free meal. Next time we'll do it on a really special occasion . . . like Flag Day.

The Newest Addition to the Spaulding Clan

Our niece Tallinn Paix Spaulding was born early Tuesday morning in Virginia. We're happy for Matt and Deneal and hope Ashton is adjusting to his new little sister. For more pictures and details, go here. Congrats big brother! :)

Happy March!

Holy cow - I lost another month!!

Well, our plans have started to solidify this past couple of weeks. It's funny how one decision can change the path of your whole life. I guess that's how we've been living this past few months. I didn't get the job in Moab, but I'm doing okay with that. About two weeks ago, I started feeling like I wouldn't get the position. Apparently around that same time one of the spa's former employees contacted them and asked if they had any open positions. Of course it made more sense for them to take someone they had already trained, so after hearing this I'm not surprised by the way things turned out. I'm really not upset about it. I have the slight feeling of letdown, but I think it's mostly because we were getting anxious to have some change in our lives coming so soon.

So what does this mean for us? We are going back to the plan we had before we looked into the Moab job. We hope to be moving up to Washington (Olympia or Seattle areas) by late spring or early summer. We're still going to be staying with my parents until then and saving our money. We're not going to make it to the Spaulding family reunion in July, but it looks like we'll make it to the Fawcett family beach trip in August.

We are so grateful for your thoughts and prayers; we know they are helping us get where we need to be. Thanks again for everything!

-Amy