Catching Up - Spring 2010

Blog updates have slowed down a lot, but after attending a wedding this past weekend and being prompted to post some updates, I figured I would go ahead and invest a few minutes. Hmmm, what has been going on....

Well back in January Abbey and I took a trip to Florida to pick up a newly purchased vehicle for a friend and drive it back to Missouri. Here is Abbey with her feet in the Atlantic Ocean in early January while back home Michael and Abbey were off school due to a snow storm.

I'm happy to report that things at work have stabilized after a very rocky 2009. Thankfully I never lost my job although pay cuts were across the board and fully reinstated back in April. Whew. A nice reminder about the importance of saving money and not blowing it all.

In the spring the strawberries started producing like crazy and Michael invited some friends over to have a campout in the backyard for his birthday. This picture was taken the night before his campout after we got the tent set up and while the girls were picking strawberries.

Back in March I bought a new gun, which is about the only thing I actually enjoy shopping for. After charting out all the different options and laboring over each feature, I finally bought a Glock .40 (G26). It is purdy. A man I go to church with is a police officer and after he discovered our mutual interest in firearms he invited me and Michael out to shoot at the police department's shooting range since he is the range officer and weapons instructor. We went out one night after work and shot with a couple of my handguns, the officer's personal assault rifle, and the officer's service pistol. It was a lot of fun, and I learned Michael is an excellent handgun shooter. Here I am shooting my first assault rifle!

And in this shot Michael is using my 17 year old Ruger P89 (9mm), which he loves by the way. You can see the spent casing mid-air.

And this photo opportunity was irresistible. I had to ask if we could pose Michael with the AR and the officer's police car. What I wouldn't have given to have a picture like this when I was 14!!!!

As for other news, Annette's part-time job at Six Flags is going well and we are headed to Branson this summer for vacation. The kids are still on the swim team and loving it. I am about to re-start my partially completed project of drywalling part of the basement, among other things. That's about all of a smattering of things I can think of now. More later. Maybe.

Our Dog, Maggie

In 1999 I began to hunt ducks and geese for the first time, introduced to it by a co-worker. I was quickly hooked and realized that a well trained retrieving dog was just as valuable as a gun. When another co-worker told me her son had a Labrador Retriever who was about to have puppies, I was hooked. Actually the pups were 75% Lab and 25% German Shorthair Pointer, still an awesome hunting mix. One Saturday in February 2002 I drove to the son's home in Tennessee to pick out a pup, and I brought home Maggie.

Maggie was seven weeks old on her first day at home, and Michael was 5, Abbey 4, and Mae was 1, just short of her second birthday. Here is a picture of Maggie's first day at home with Michael and Abbey.

Early on I dedicated myself to training her to retrieve and she took to it very well. We were constantly going to lakes and fields to practice. I checked out a retriever training video at the local library and followed their instructions. In a short time I had Maggie retrieving real birds in addition to "dummies" and also working from hand signals.

In September 2002 she retrieved her first dead goose on our first hunt together. This was the same hunt where my Uncle Jim killed his first goose ever. Though this is a bad picture, it's me and Maggie with her first goose after she went and fetched it out of the water. She was only 9 months old and I've got the goose in my right hand.

Later that same year I captured a very nice picture of Maggie on a late season goose hunt in northeast Missouri. Because Maggie was wearing a Cabela's camo hunting vest, I sent the photo in to Cabela's and they published it in a seasonal flyer they send out. I have copies of that flyer somewhere. This is the picture they published.

As the years went by the kids got older and my affection for waterfowl hunting tapered off, so Maggie became less of a hunting dog and more of a pet. Last December 23 Maggie had her 8th birthday, but it might be her last.

Over the last 14-16 months Maggie's coat has changed considerably. She has gone from a deep chocolate to a rusty/orangey color and her hair is brittle. Now she pants a lot, drinks tons of water, and recently developed infected sores on her body and ear infections. She was due for vaccinations last week so I took her in. Instead of vaccinations we did bloodwork, and the results are in. She has Cushing's disease. I had never heard of it before but it's caused by a tumor which forces the overproduction of a chemical in her body, creating every symptom she has. I didn't realize it, but she has lost 13 pounds since her last visit to the vet. Muscle mass wastes away and now her ribs and spine are visible. Treatment options are outrageously expensive and don't prolong her life, so here we are. Tonight we told the kids that our time with Maggie is limited and that she won't make it to old age, like 12. I assume it will be much less. She has been a good dog, a really good dog, and I know that even though a dog can get on your nerves, we will miss her.

Here is a picture I took today and you can see we have Maggie's elbow bandaged due to infected skin sores. She is losing her coat now - the disease causes that. The hair around her neck is gone and her belly is almost bald. Eventually she'll have hair on nothing but her head and legs, if she makes it that long. Eight years isn't that long for a dog to live, so we are very sad, but it's still eight years with a great dog that we are glad to have. These pictures were taken about two hours before Annette and I told the kids Maggie is terminally ill.

The Snow Falleth

I've often heard people say, "We just don't get as much snow around here as we used to. Remember when we were kids? There was a ton of snow." Well, I was a kid in the 1970s and I just learned a few weeks ago through a weather trivia type link on a St. Louis news webpage that the 1970s included three record setting years for snowfall, making the 1970s a very snowy decade, so yes, the 80s, 90s, and 00s have seen less snow than "when we were kids."

But if you live in the St. Louis metro and you trust Dave Murray, then we were told this could be a snowy year. So far I wouldn't yet call it "snowy," but we've gotten a couple decent dumps. This past Friday I took off work while the snow fell but the kids headed to school, only to be released early due to an all-day snowfall. While the snow fell, I stepped onto our deck and took this photo of our backyard:

The snow was very wet which made it heavy to shovel, but also excellent for snowballs and snowmen. Today (Saturday, 2/6), I was outside with the kids just doing a couple jobs when, not surprisingly, someone started a snowball fight and I was all too happy to participate. Here are a couple shots of the fight:

Here is one I really like - Michael letting go of a snowball aimed directly at my butt while I was bent over trying to reload and hit Abbey. (Notice the snowball in flight - thankfully it missed the mark!)

We also went to work on a snowman and we built the biggest snowman we ever have.

Oh, and we're supposed to get 6 - 8 more inches in the next couple days!

Annette Got a Job!

Annette has looked for part time work that fits her schedule and that is hard to come by because she likes to be available to substitute teach and be close to the kids on school days, but she recently landed a summer job at Six Flags, where she worked as a teenager. The pay isn't great but the hours are just right (or so it would seem) and we get all kinds of amusement park perks.

Oh, and here are a couple pictures of the kids taken on a January thaw day. All the pent up frustration came up and while their bodies may have enjoyed the exercise, at least one ended up unhappy!

Merry Christmas

Another Christmas has come and gone and a year from now very few if any of the presents we just received will be remembered and hopefully most of them will still be functional. Another reminder to make sure we keep our focus on what Christmas is really all about!

On Christmas Eve we made the usual trek to participate in a Christmas gathering with Annette's mother's side of the family, the Tidwell side. We went to Mickie and Brendon's home in Chesterfield as has become the recent tradition. It was pouring rain and creeks and rivers were overflowing. All the while we were getting the rain, regions to our west were getting pounded with snow and family from Oklahoma City couldn't visit because of their "blizzard-like conditions" on Christmas Eve.

Once we got home on Christmas Eve we prepared everyone for bed and read our traditional Christmas story out of Luke chapter two, then read The Night Before Christmas. Then off to bed the kids went. Santa was generous because Christmas morning the kids found a Wii game system along with lots of games and accessories for it. They had been desperately asking for it and I continued to play up my "video games are bad for your brain" act to discourage their hopes in getting one so they'd be more excited. I think it worked.

A cold front moved through in the night and a dusting of snow had fallen overnight on top of very wet roads from the rain. That made for, you guessed it, bad driving conditions on Christmas day. We departed our house around 11 a.m. headed for my mom's and I found I-44 drivers going exceptionally slow for the limited amount of snow. But in the next 20 miles I probably saw at least a dozen cars in the ditch. And then there was the near miss. At Pacific I was driving in the left lane with a little red car in front of me. As we rounded a curve I saw two cars blocking the left lane that had previously collided. I immediately began to apply the brakes hard and yelled to the kids, "Hold on!" I thought we would hit them. I pumped the brakes and the anti-lock brakes were kicking on but we weren't stopping fast enough. The car in front of me tried to stop but slid sideways, then crashed into the already stalled cars. I held the left lane for several seconds, pumping the brakes. And at the last minute I drifted right into an opening other drivers had provided for me by shifting right themselves. I snaked my way right through that little trap and immediately uttered, "Thank you Lord."

We got to mom's no problem and exchanged gifts with my grandfather, mom, uncle, sisters, and their families. And while there the kids scored Guitar Hero or Band Hero (not sure which) for their new Wii system. We had a P.M. Christmas party scheduled with Annette's parents and brother that day but it was postponed due to the unusually slick nature of the roads. We got home that night and the kids did nothing but play with the Wii.

Yesterday was 12/26 and we had our previously postponed Christmas party with Annette's mother and brother and family. It was all about the Wii. I mostly cleaned my office and prepared to transfer my ever-growing library onto new bookshelves Annette got me for Christmas.

And so that's that. I'm off work all this week and I go back on 1/4. I'm looking forward to the time off and spending time with the family. I hope you had a Merry Christmas this year.

If you have been in the habit of receiving Christmas cards from us in the past you have probably noticed they're missing this year, as well as last year. We seem to be getting away from sending them. It's not to slight anyone! It's just one more thing to do in an already busy month that also includes a lot of birthdays. We're considering putting out a little letter in January to bring people up to date on some different things and just touch base through the regular mail. If you don't get one by 1/31 and want one, either I left you off by accident or maybe I have an old address. Feel free to drop me your current mailing address if you've moved recently and you haven't received any mail from the Furey's at your new address.

Have a safe New Year!

Springfield Bible Conference

This is just a quick plug for a conference I've found that is wonderful. Faith Bible Church is a church in Springfield, Illinois that hosts a Bible conference each year. A group of men take the church bus over to Springfield for a day's worth of preaching by various speakers. Last year Paul Washer was the headliner and this year was Steve Lawson (who works with John MacArthur) and Jeff Pollard. In addition to a wonderful day of preaching and teaching from the Bible, they sell various Christian books at substantial discounts. Below is a photo of three I picked up this year. The three combined cost me about $20, and the first book, Foundations of Grace by Steve Lawson, is over 500 pages. If you are anywhere nearby and want deep, rich teaching that goes from around 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., stop by. Everything is free (except the books, of course).

Pictured books are (from left to right): Foundations of Grace by Steve Lawson, 558 pages. This demonstrates how grace has always been God's plan from the beginning of time. Foxe's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe, 373 pages. This book details some of the millions who have died for their faith in Jesus Christ. Finally, The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards by Steve Lawson, 166 pages. This deals with the way God used a Puritan pastor in Colonial America to proclaim and defend the gospel of grace.

Deer Season 2009

It's a little early for me to write a report on the success of the 2009 deer season since it is still in progress, and continues for me and for Michael on Friday and Saturday of this week, but opening weekend is now behind us so here is an update.

As some of you know from a prior post, Michael and Abbey took and passed hunter education in October. This allows Michael the ability to hunt from his own stand (separate from me). He did just that on opening weekend and saw several deer but didn't get any shots. Though it was a cloudy weekend with some rain, Willie, Michael, and I all hunted and I was the only one to kill a deer that weekend. Though it was a small deer, I felt lucky to get it after the weather we had. My uncle Randy, however, had much better luck, killing two deer on opening day, a buck and a doe.

Here are some photos from our first weekend.

On Friday, November 13, shortly after Michael arrived at camp after school, we made this campfire.

Even though this wasn't the biggest deer I've ever killed, I was glad to get one with weather so foul and on Michael's first day hunting in his own stand during "big deer season." It was a button buck.

An overview of our campsite. Willie drives the Ford Explorer and I have the GMC pickup

Here is Michael getting ready to head back to the stand for the afternoon hunt. This picture was taken on Saturday.

A moment of relaxation in the camper. Pay no attention to the mess or all the Mountain Dew bottles.