Jake is hanging in there like the stubborn dog he is. We still give him the max dose of prednisone that the vet originally prescribed. That makes him eat lots and pee more. When we let him out in the morning and after work, its about a 2 minute steady stream. No wonder he is panting when we get up.

He has good days and bad. Yesterday he was running after the ball and the Frisbee some when we were in the back yard. But then when it was time for bed, he had a hard time climbing up. There is a small section of my brain that thinks that he is playing us. Because we are not sure how much longer he will be with us, he pretty much gets what he wants. He gets a can of soft food each morning (also b/c he can’t swallow the hard food so he wasn’t eating much), he doesn’t get yelled at as much when he tramples the garden and eats the tomatoes off the vine the day before Paul was going to pick them, and he sleeps on the bed with us at night. Most nights Jake and I are sacked out before Paul even starts practicing guitar so a couple hours later he has to wiggle in between us. That is always funny b/c he either does it in the dark or leaves the light on , then has to figure out how to get the lamp clicked off.

Often times there is a milestone that dying people hang on for. We are wondering if that might be the Dog Splash for Jake. Each year the city pool in Burlington closes for a week for cleaning and draining the pool. Before they do they let dogs come swim for $5. We took Jake, Maggie and Katie last year and had a BLAST.  The only reason we left was b/c the dogs’ paws were bleeding from running on the concrete and climbing out of the pool (they were not interested in the zero gravity entrance). The 2010 Dog Splash is next weekend (September 11) and we have our reservations set. Here is a picture of Jake at the 2009 Dog Splash:

COWABUNGAAAAAAA

OK, technically this isn't from this weekend, but Labor Day weekend. It was just too cute not to share. The dogs are not allowed on the bed normally so it took several tries to get Maggie to realize Paul was OK w it. We have one blurry pic w Barton on there too...only after I staged it though.

On our way to the Dog Splash! 5 very excited heads in that back seat!

Jake was so excited to take a running leap off the deck into the water chasing the ball Paul brought. Katie and Maggie were much more cautious.

Tyler going down the slide. Notice the similarity to Jake?

ZONKED! All of the dogs were so tired after the pool. Katie and Maggie just climbed in the car to lay down. Jake tried to fight it, but this was only 10 minutes into the ride home.

Sunday morning the kids and dogs let us sleep until 7am! Might be a record in our house. We played around with the kids in our bed for awhile, then Paul got them breakfast and cartoons. I managed to get away with reading in bed until 7:45am! So when Anna asked to play the game Trouble at 8am on a Sunday, how do you say no?? Well, if I had known how Paul would respond, I might have waited until I had a little more caffeine. He is RUTHLESS! It literally took Tyler about 20 turns to get a man out to start the game. Then 2 turns later Paul landed on him, sending him back to home. Same to me and Anna. It was so dang funny, I started to take pictures. Tyler just sat under the table w the dogs until his turn came around, then he would take his turn and slide back under the table. The video of the game winning move is SO funny. I have asked Paul to post it so we will see if it is edited at all. Meanwhile, check out these pictures!

Click here to view the embedded video.

4:50am–alarm goes off

5:50am–leave house w kids and Paul

6:30am–triathlon training w Team in Training heroes @ Belews lake (what the kids call Quiet Lake b/c when we go at dark o’clock they have to be quiet since all of the locals are asleep.) We swam 1 mile, they road 4 miles and ran 1 mile. I ran 3 miles after the swim instead. Tyler found 2 more clams to bring home to join Clammy, the clam he found at Quiet Lake 2 weeks ago. Yes it is still alive and lives in his trash can. Did I tell you a nuc. power plant drains into this lake?

8:45am–left the lake, McDonalds for breakfast, drove home

10am–it takes all 4 of us three attempts to get Barton in to the cat carrier. Bluesy sat in the driver’s seat of my car with a dog leash on him. I take the cats to the vet for their check up. They are fine, Paul and I are $200 poorer.

Noon–home, kids play outside, Paul and I whirlwind clean, give them lunch and clean out my car.

1pm–pile in the Fit. Yes, 300 pounds of dog in the back, 2 kids in their car seats in the back, then Paul and I in the front.

1:30pm–return home, we forgot a wallet; back on the road everyone naps, except poor Paul.

2:30pm–arrive in Burlington for the Dog Splash, the dogs and people can swim in the Aquatics Center pool. It was CRAZY FUN until Maggie and Jake’s toe nails started bleeding from climbing out of the pool.

4pm–leave pool with kids in dry clothes and dogs w bloody feet.

5pm–arrive home, drop off dogs and fix dog feet to stop bleeding. Leave again for dinner

Losing track of time–Ate dinner at Mellow Mushroom. Natty Greene’s Golden Ale and Ceasar Salad pizza is my new favorite food.

7pm–home, pass out on the couch

We will ALL sleep well tonight. HOPEFULLY kids and dogs will sleep past 6am….

My friends Tamara and Bryan from work also did the race with us and they both did good also. This was Tamara’s first triathlon and she looked strong when she finished, even sprinting it out with a guy that was trying to pass her. This was Bryan’s second triathlon and he looked like he felt much better this time. All and all a good race day!

Yesterday morning we did the Greensboro Gobbler, a 5K running race at Country Park in Greensboro. The race was at 9am and when we left the house it was 30 degrees out so I wasn’t exactly excited (I like cold weather I just don’t like working out in it for some reason). There were 1063 people in the race so it was PACKED in the park but it was still a fun run. The park has a lot of hills so it isn’t exactly the best race for us Clydesdales and Athenas but Susan and I both had a good race. The race was two laps around the park and by the second time around the hills were slowing me down more than I would have liked. In the end I was slower than I wanted to be but it was still my fastest time ever in a race (although I have been faster in some training runs), I was even fast enough to lap a lot of people so I was happy with it. Susan also had her best time ever in a 5K so she was happy. I wasn’t surprised with her time because she has been running really good lately. I keep telling her she is faster now but she doesn’t want to admit it.

To add to it I went for a swim at lunch with the plan of swimming 1000 meters. About 500 meters into the swim I felt like I was slacking in the swim so I decided to pick up the pace and extend the swim to at least 1600 meters. In the end I did 1800 meters before I ran out of time.

We have a 3 mile run tomorrow and a 14 mile run on Sunday so hopefully I am back on track now.