Josie passed away on the 7th late at night at the E.R. in Gilbert. She was making this low, rattling noise with every breath and it was clearly very difficult for her to breathe. We were lucky dave was visiting from hawaii so we could both take her and he could stay home with coop. They said there was something they could do but it might not work and if it did it would only help her for a little while and the same thing would happen again. I asked if we could think about it and spend the night with her and he said no because she is suffering. So we made the hardest decision we've ever had to make. That night I just remember crying so much my eyes hurt and feeling like I was going to throw up at any second. Then I think for a good 4 days I was numb. After that I was more depressed than I've ever felt. It definitely puts in perspective for me how people deal with depression every day. I had zero energy and couldn't get excited about anything. The only thing that has kind of helped me is knowing that it was better for HER. If we think about what was better for Josie, it's so nice to know that she is finally feeling good again. She feels comfortable and has energy and she's playing with Charlie, Sammy and Harley by the rainbow bridge. She hasn't felt good in over a year and a half. But it's not that I feel great now- I've accepted it but I'm just lonely all the time. It's lonely when only one dog greets me at the door, when I read in my chair by myself, when I watch tv without her, when I sleep and she's not right by my head, when we go for walks and she's not underneath the stroller. I put off doing this blog because she's in almost every picture and I didn't know how I could put into words this emptiness. I miss hearing her, her smell, watching cooper laugh at her. After that long it's like I don't know how to be without her. She was always with me- even when I peed. We've been slowly gathering the courage to move things- dallin cried moving her leash. I moved her food bowl but haven't even opened the cupboard to where all her medicines were. Sometimes I feel fine, and other times it hits me so hard out of the blue and suddenly I'm crying in the car. Josie and I had a special bond and I don't know if I will ever have that again. Jake has always been more independent and Josie for some reason was always glued to me. I've never been this sad before in my life- almost like there is literally a hole in the center of my body. Maybe I should've seen it coming but I thought she'd pull through like she has 10 other times before. I don't know if I ever would have been prepared for that. So at least this way I got to say goodbye. When I said goodbye I just thanked her for everything. All times she was there for me when I was scared beyond belief because cooper was growing inside me (yikes) , all the times she ran and played fetch with us, did funny things, went boating, cuddled, saw santa, etc. I feel lucky we have those memories and we got to be with her for almost 8 years. So because of that I wanted to remember the good times and cherish those instead of focusing on the end. That's why I made this video. We used to hold her and dance in the kitchen and sing my girl by the temptations so that was the song I used as the background but YouTube kept banning it because of copyright.
Hopefully the link below works with the song- it's Vimeo instead of YouTube.
So here's the song that's supposed to go with those pictures
This was us saying goodbye
I cut a piece of her hair out and saved it in a plastic bag to keep a piece of her.
This was after she was gone
The silver lining is that we still have so much to be grateful for.
Jamie sent me that picture and Jessi gave us flowers and Shelly and my aunt robin sent a card.
Gianna gave me this cute mug and it is my new favorite. So thoughtful of her.
For a while I felt like getting another dog would be the wrong thing to do but after seeing how depressed Jake is I changed my mind. He needs someone so bad because during the day when we're working he's all alone. He howls and just lays there crying and he still won't eat very much. So it wasn't really for me, but we're getting a puppy on the 29th. This is her. I really hope it goes well. He is definitely not himself after losing Jojo so I hope he's nice to her. And I hope she's good and we like her. Still no name we want to meet her first. We're partly excited and partly nervous about the pesky puppy stage it's a lot of work.
Cooper and Josie
The other project was him and dallin put up a pool fence.
My aunt robin came to surprise my dad and it was good to see her again! We went to harley davidson
We had a fire
Shelly's birthday party!
Gave him a banana and he wasn't eating it just smashing it
Working on the pool fence
On christmas day we had dinner with gianna nick and luca.
Family pics with matching jammies we opened on christmas eve
dallins' present from his mom he was so excited about it
Dallin loves the christmas decor so much he begs for it to go up early and stay up longer
Oh I will miss seeing jake and jo together like this.
Our Christmas break
We had such a good two week break, I didn't want to go back. The pic below are the flowers from my next door neighbor for christmas and they were so beautiful and thoughtful.
My dad brought his golf cart up for us to use and it's been awesome! He fixed it up for us.
riding on the golf cart is so fun!
The other project was him and dallin put up a pool fence.
My aunt robin came to surprise my dad and it was good to see her again! We went to harley davidson
My aunt robin brought her dogs buddy and sasha
I tried to hit the after christmas sales at multiple stores and it was already picked over by 9 am.
We thought it was funny that there was a brand called Koops. He was petting buddy while drinking his bottle
My dad put lights and bows on the pool fence to make it festive lol
There was a lot of cooking of course lol
I realized this year that going to church on christmas eve has started to really mean a lot to me for some reason. There was a second there when I thought we might not be able to go and I was very very sad about it. So doing this was really nice and it made it feel like christmas. We watched the christmas chronicles one on christmas eve and one on christmas day and loved it.
We love their band here
We enjoyed the lights on the way out.
We made gingerbread houses and had a contest! My dad's ended up winning
Christmas morning shelly had kidney stones and ended up in the hospital. (With a doctor who was an actual idiot.) After her pain was under control we were able to do christmas. These pictures are so sweet with josie and cooper.
Ugly sweater day
josie sasha and buddy
weird pics of my parents wedding (cringe)
We played a very competitive family feud amongst the many games that were played
We got this thing so that cooper can watch movies while we change his diaper so that he doesnt' try to flip and crawl away. It helps so much
Ornaments
Usually my mom gives us an ornament every year to kind of remember the big things that happened that year and we devote an entire tree to those sentimental type ornaments.
This year she didn't but we got one that said baby's first christmas on a white porcelain block ornament from my aunt robin and then I bought this ornament that's all about 2020 because I thought it was a weird year and one to remember.
Our Decorations
We had a full house with the trailer, my dads truck and robin's truck. The guys put up the lights and I loved it! Next year they're gonna be even better cuz they gave us some more lights.
We went to rumba before my dad left
After Christmas
He thought it was so funny that dallin got in with him lol
Going to the park with livi
January mantle. I got 3 new signs this year, hoping to get a new tall thing for the right side next year
I stained the urn because the wood tone was really red and put it on the mantle and the paw print in the kitchen so jojo is still with us.
My mom gave us a date book for christmas and we started doing it and its my resolution to date once a week and also write down our favorite part about that week or what we're grateful for so that we can look back next new years and read them all. The first date was make a pie with one person blindfolded lol it has been pretty fun so far
The next one was have a fire. We were sad to do a fire without josie
I missed coop so marni sent me a picture
He wanted his toy in the cage so he was playing with it through the mesh haha
Cooper can climb the stairs now! Jake taught him. This was him being so excited about it lol
Jake has been so clingy and mopey lately. I feel so terrible for him. He lost his sibling of his whole life and he didn't even get to say goodbye.
Park date
The house. We love it but we decided we wanna build in the new community going in by our house in like 2 or 3 years.
Went over to nick and g's new years eve and met his sister that was fun! They gave coop this walker thing (with that and everything he got from christmas the kid is spoiled rotten)
Janine and Mia
The next date was to recreate your parents first date. We did dave and sara's first date. She had short hair and he had blonde hair and they went to a dance, held hands in the car and ate ice-cream after. It was so funny getting wigs haha
So this is our video of us recreating the date. The theme of the dance was "Private eyes." My editing skills are so impressive right?!?!
We have been staying really busy and that helps with losing jojo. This was one of the many park dates
his face is so cute in this one
We went to whiskey row with misha and tristan and huxley after swim lessons and that was really fun
Creepy monitor pic and cooper standing up when he's supposed to be napping lol
His first time in target
This was how he crawled over Christmas break
This was him a week later crawling
We finally broke down and sleep trained on new years eve. Lots of time has been spent with him crying in the night and us not picking him up. But he's always still happy in the morning so he's okay lol
Went over to nick and g's new years eve and met his sister that was fun! They gave coop this walker thing (with that and everything he got from christmas the kid is spoiled rotten)
Back to work!
My first day back marni was out of town so coop went to play with lexi olivia and add that day. From the looks of it they had a blast!
Swim lessons
we love swim lessons so much! It's so fun to watch coop loving it and spend time with him and also get to be social and get out.
He has 2 teeth now!
on bottom, still nothing on top
Dave's visit
It was good that he was here because it distracted us for a while from the josie thing. It was so cute seeing them do swim lessons together.
Dallin took jake for a ride in the golf cart his first day back at work so that he would have some companionship and get out but it didn't seem to help him that much. The whole reason we got Josie in the first place was because when he was alone he was acting out. He was all of a sudden chewing the table legs and barking non stop and peeing and stuff, so I hope it doesn't get to that again.
I don't think that lash stuff is doing anything. It looks the exact same to me.
This was our first walk without Jojo
He's such a cute little swimmer
Play date with huxley and mia
We went to the sandbar cuz I was starving lol it was fun!
coop and huxley always kiss for some reason lol this was his first time trying celery
Back at it with Bachelor nights
This was episode 1. This was the same night Josie died. I didn't know she was that bad so I went to bachelor night like normal and came home and she was getting worse each hour so by 9pm we were taking her in and she passed away around midnight.
This was episode 2-
Stephanie, Jessi, Kirsten, Gianna, Shelly, Jake, Lexi, me
Coop watched the first bit with us until bedtime
He was staring at kirsten like "you gonna finish that sandwich?" lol
This was watching episode 3!
This is Cooper balancing standing up with no hands!
I survived another concert
I literally had 33 people drop out. One was the day of- just a no show. So to say it was stressful is a massive understatement. It always is- I've begun to hate concerts because of how stressful they are. It was a 12 hour day for me and I only had 3 hours of sleep the night before because of coopers screaming and my own stress making it so i couldn't sleep. I was sending emails at 1 am of things I forgot and stuff. So the pic of the space buns was dress rehearsal and the other one was a pic after all 3 concerts were over on satruday. That's all i got. It was overall a success but just the road to getting there was an actual nightmare. We had to hand write every single ticket and there were like 700 or more. I stand by my opinion that beginning dance only needs to perform once a year. But that doesn't matter we will do this all over again in may. woo hoo. I couldn't have done it without dallin and shelly they were both so helpful. Anyways- I survived and I'm glad it's over.
Ripping' and Shippin'
Here we are hustlin'. This side hustle is making pretty good money so far! Jake was not as enthusiastic.
The january bulletin board
It's so cute. I love doing these.
playdate with mia
being social helps us all to be so much happier. Mia and janine and mike live right by my school so it's easy to just stop by after work
He's so cuddly
I love the cuddles. It's like he knew I'm sad and needed that. Or he's just always been a cuddle boy idk
I finally tried swim lessons
I was scared so I didn't do it with him until his 4th time going. Then once i was in there it wasn't scary at all so i'm glad i did.
We had fun!
Well I guess that's it. I have to make the 2020 book again. January is always a hard month because taking down christmas and going back to work and doing that stupid book every year is annoying. But this time its worse because I don't have Jojo to do it with. It will get better with time and we are still so lucky in so many ways.
Hope you all stay safe and healthy cuz that's the most important thing.
