Stephanie's Wedding Dress Shopping Day 1!

November 7, 2014 ~ So my little diva cousin, Stephanie is getting married! You might remember this super sneaky occasion as I posted about it on my blog!  You can click on the following link: http://www.thelongdirtroad10.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-surprise-engagement-justin-stephanie.html

So I jumped in the car with her momma and my Aunt Judy along with one of Stephanie's friends and bridesmaids, Logan and headed for Kansas City! Reminds me of a song from Fats Domino....

"I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come

They got some crazy little women there
And I'm gonna take photos of some!"

So I might have changed the last two pieces to fit into this little adventure!  After all we are dealing with wedding dresses, an engagement party and lots of fun!

Oh yes we did! 

You can't go to Kansas City with out stopping at Krispy Kreme! 

(Logan had never tasted one before.... Seriously? How is this even possible?)

Stephanie had 3 appointments with 3 different shops to try on wedding dresses. Stephanie wanted to include her Grandma Gayle and Aunt Susie in her special day and what a great way to get the party started by finding that perfect dress!

 (Stephanie's dad was killed in a car accident when she was 2 1/2 years old. He was a twin and his sister, Susie and mother Gayle would proudly be there for this day. I know her daddy would have been so proud of the woman she has become!) 

Everyone listening to Judy about the budget they want to stay in! Ha! 

(This was just a fun picture that I can only imagine she was saying!) 

Stephanie had a fun time trying on all kinds of dresses. 

No matter the style she will make a beautiful bride! 

Judy Daly

(Stephanie's momma)

Linda Secrist 

(Justin's momma)

Grandma Gayle Daly

(Stephanie's dad's momma)

Aunt Susie Sapp

(Stephanie's dad's twin sister)

 Logan McCollum

(Stephanie's friend and one of her bridesmaids)

All done at shop number 1! 

(Now y'all know I can't show you any dresses but she narrowed it down to one favorite at this shop!)

Ready to check out shop number 2! 

Waiting to see what dresses Stephanie picks out from this cute shop! 

This picture cracks me up! 

Not sure what either one is thinking but it's so serious! 

After picking out several dresses I think it's time to try them on!

 Another fun trip of trying all different styles of dresses! 

I love the looks on everyone's faces... Stephanie looked stunning! 

All done with shop number 2! 

(Yep she even found a favorite at this shop!) 

Finally it's lunch time! 

All of this shopping had us ready to eat! 

So after lunch Stephanie really liked one of the first dresses that she tried on and wanted to go try it on again to decide. When we went back to the first shop the lady was totally different and tried to pressure her into buying the dress. The pushy attitude and her whole demeanor made this decision super easy... to keep looking!  Stephanie was bummed but pissed at the same time. She didn't want to make a decision on a major piece of her wedding day because they gave her a "good deal" for that day only. Everything happens for a reason and we still have one more shop for today and another for tomorrow to see what they might have!

 Ready for shop number 3! 

Stephanie's friend and another bridesmaid, Jordan Huddleston joined us for this one! 

(We had a pep talk in the parking lot and felt like we needed to have fun and not worry about the other lady that had a bad attitude. This shop might just have "the dress" so we needed to just enjoy!

We already liked this place a lot! 

While they went to find dresses that Stephanie would like to try on they were looking through the expensive dresses to see if anything popped out at her! (Pretty sure Judy would have had a heart attack if she had found one!) 

Pretty sure Stephanie liked what they picked out! 

Let's get to trying dresses on! 

 No wedding dress would be complete without awesome socks! Ha!

 Stephanie had a lot of fun trying on wedding dresses at this shop! 

 After trying on nearly 40 dresses Stephanie was on "Wedding Dress Overload". She fell in love with a few dresses but nothing just yet wanted to make her say "Yes To The Dress"!  Guess we'll just keep looking and hopefully we will find "the one" tomorrow!

Picking Up Our Bailey Girl!

November 4, 2014 ~ Today was an exciting day because we got to pick our Bailey Girl (as we call her) up! She had a mastectomy and several little knots removed last year and earlier this year we felt a mass in the same area so I took her back in to find that her breast cancer had come back. They recommended that we take her to the University of Missouri Vet School to find out why these little masses keep popping back up and to make sure they got things under control early.

She was so excited to get the heck outta there and come home! They had to remove 8 masses and 4 sets of lymph nodes so needless to say she was beat up pretty good. Sadly this would mean she would have to wear the "Cone of Shame" as they couldn't afford to do a 4th surgery on her mastectomy site.

She did really well but hated the cone. 

We let her come to the shop with us from this point forward so that we could keep an eye on her.

 She has so many people asking about her after a very rough year of several major surgeries and one of my friends even got her some special doggie cookies! Thank you Kathryn!

We decided that Bailey girl is going to be spoiled rotten and we were going to make sure that she enjoys life even more than before! She loves squeaker toys and will quickly work to get those things out of any toy. All you have to do is ask her where her squeaker is and she will go find it! 

Bailey sleeps a lot since her surgery. 

It's hard to know if she is sad, feeling bad or pouting. 

She doesn't go too far from me. If I get up she is watching my every move. Of course she loves Brandon and will gladly go anywhere with him but she knows her momma always has fresh water, food and lots of treats! 

It's going to be a long road as we found out the results of all the masses and lymph nodes they removed. Bailey has Metastatic Breast Cancer that has moved into her lymph nodes. The largest mammary glands are close to her groin which is where she has now had 3 surgeries for breast cancer. Metastatic Breast Cancer means a poor prognosis for Bailey. The University of Missouri Vet School wanted us to do chemo but they aren't sure this will cure her and will make her sick for a few days after an injection. This was something that Brandon and I didn't want to put her through and decided the best thing for Bailey is to spoil the heck out of her and keep a close watch on her. When we see that something needs to be addressed or is a concern we will take her to the doctor or hospital. The biggest fear right now is that it doesn't go to her lungs or bones. Those can be very painful and there isn't anything we can do except make the choice we will be faced with soon enough. 

We lost our very first dog, a Min Pin named Max at age 14 to kidney failure in 2012. He was 14 days away from turning 14 years old and after taking care of him we sadly had to put him to sleep as it wasn't fair to him to keep him any longer. 

We lost our second dog, a Min Pin named Mattie at age 16 to a cancer mass in her throat earlier this year. Her barker was broke and she has a wheezing sound she made. After taking her in to University of Missouri Vet School to do a CT Scan they called us as Mattie was under to tell us that we needed to say our goodbyes or they would have to do a tracheotomy on her. We felt the best decision was to not wake her up as it would be harder on all of us. 

Bailey is our last dog. She is a "Heinz 57" with beagle who was found on the side of the road in Fulton, MO. She was about 8 weeks old and a friend of ours stopped because he didn't want her to get hit. He tried to put her in a back yard close by but he knew that wasn't her yard. He finally just loaded her up in the truck with him and brought her home. When I saw her I knew she would be coming home with me! She has been one of the best dogs anyone could ask for and even better than our temperamental min pins! At 13 years old she still enjoys playing with her toys and she knows what you are saying when you ask her. Brandon taught her as a puppy how to go to the end of our driveway and bring the newspaper up to the house. She would do this all on her own and the newspaper was bigger than she was! 

So, for any of my friends on Facebook I will apologize now for so many Bailey pictures. She is going to get as much attention and love that we can offer her for as long as she is with us. Thinking today is a great day to get her a new squeaker toy!