Vacation (all we ever wanted)!

We just spent the 3rd week of July up north with my parents, sisters, bro-in-law and nieces. We rented a cottage on Lake Charlevoix in Boyne City. We had such a great time that we're looking to rent the same place next summer! We had a couple of rainy days, but were still able to enjoy the lake, which was beautiful. We cooked some good meals, the boys golfed, the girls shopped, and Mags got a lot of quality time with her cousins. Wherever Maggie was, Lucy (the almost 2-year-old) was not far behind. She didn't play with her baby dolls all week, as she had a live one of her very own! The only drawback to the family vacation was that none of us could bring our dogs. Artie stayed home and was graced with the attention of a -fabulous- pet sitter that we hired. We were lucky to find her; I think Artie really misses her.
On the 19th, Saul and I celebrated our anniversary on Mags's 2 month birthday. Four years of wedded bliss already... it's gone by so quickly! It's already hard to remember life before Maggie.

Independence Day

Hope all of you enjoyed your 4th of July as much as we did! Our friends Ray and Robin came over and we had an All-American feast of beer can chicken, corn on the cob, lemon barley, rocket pops, and Faygo. For dessert Robin made the best strawberry shortcake I've ever had (sorry, Mom!).
Maggie is doing well! She's 7 weeks old today. She's growing like mad and starting to feel pretty heavy. I had to pack up her "newborn" sized clothes, which made me sad. Grandma Susie came to stay with us for the last couple days, so Mags got some quality time in her stroller while we shopped. She didn't seem to mind at all, so there should be plenty more shopping expeditions in her future. Mom and I took her to get her pictures taken on Thursday, and she did great. I had a hard time getting her to wake up when we first got to the studio, but she didn't cry once.
We're dealing with some troubling news about Artie. At his annual checkup 2 weeks ago, the vet detected a heart murmur. On Tuesday Saul took Artie to a vet cardiologist at MSU, who gave him an EKG. The results showed that he has insufficiency of the mitral and tricuspid valves which causes backflow of blood from the ventricle back into the atrium. We have the option of giving him carvedilol, a beta-blocker for humans... but the cardiologist said it is "very, very expensive." We haven't yet learned just how expensive. The problem is that this medicine hasn't been proven to work for dogs, though research has shown that it delays or prevents progression of Artie's type of heart disease in humans. We're not sure we can justify the expense, since the tests at MSU are costly and Artie will have to have them done every 3 months to determine whether or not the heart disease has progressed. I have a pit in my stomach just typing this out. We have not seen any changes in Artie's behavior... he's as lively and naughty as ever, so we are crossing our fingers that his heart condition doesn't worsen so that he can maintain his quality of life.