July 4, 2013 was a day of hard work and firsts. The hard work began early. We have to get my mom's house ready to go on the market and that means emptying, cleaning, painting and making repairs. The fourth was spent planting grass in the back yard and removing wallpaper. The promise of rain made it a good day for planting the grass. We are hoping for the soft, steady kind of rain, not the hard pouring rain that will wash all the seed away. Time will tell how we did. The dogs are not very happy about not being able to run and chase each other.
Removing wallpaper is not fun on a good day. The wallpaper I removed was olive green and orange with flowers and stripes from the sixties. I found another layer of wallpaper underneath that had a gray background with blue diamonds and a red or pink flower design. Very Victorian looking. But, it will have to go too. So, round two next week. The bathroom had an under layer of a thick paper over walls that had been textured. It was meant to make the wallpaper look smoother. While the actual wallpaper came off pretty easily, the under layer was very hard to take off and had a lot of glue to remove. The plus side is that everything was removed except for a small paper behind the toilet that I can't reach. I will have to find some kind of thin tool with a long handle for that part. We primed everything and the difference is amazing. I can't wait to see what it looks like with real paint.
Since we were up at Mom's and not at home we decided to walk to the end of the street to see the fireworks. Because we live in the middle of a National Forest, we don't have fireworks here. Cooper has never seen or heard fireworks in his life and Sadie probably only once. We found a place to sit at the little playground and settled in to watch the show. The action was actually happening about a mile away, but we could see just fine. Of course, as soon as we got there, kids came running up to pet Sadie and Cooper. They are such good ambassadors of the breed. They love everyone and are very gentle with little ones. I explained how Sadie likes to be read to. One little girl wanted to know what her favorite books are. When I told her than Miss Sadie likes Dr. Suess, she said, "Me too!" She seemed very disappointed she couldn't sign up to read since we don't live there.
A few minutes after we settled down, the first rocket went off. Cooper was fascinated. He saw the bright light, then heard the boom and then heard the echo. He was curious and excited about everything. It was a great show lasting over 30 minutes. About halfway through Cooper decided the echo wasn't important so quit looking for something to happen behind us. Sadie wasn't impressed at all. She has never been afraid of loud noises before except for the sonic booms from the jets flying over from the base. She doesn't mind thunder or the noises at the dog shows. But, evidently she associated the noise from the fireworks with the sonic booms. Even though she was a bit stressed, nothing came between her and the treats. That's my girl!
On the way back to the house, Sadie stepped on a sticker. She gave me the "look" that blamed me for everything bad that had happened to her. I reminded her about the kids loving on her and the treats. She didn't listen. She went right into her crate and gave me the "give me a cookie" look, turned her back to the door and went to sleep. Needless to say, I am sure she is not scarred for life. Cooper on the other hand wants to go again. He loved the whole experience.
