Last Saturday, June 13, 2009 Ben's 8 1/2 year old PitBull, Turbo passed away. Ben got him as a puppy barely old enough to be away from his mother, he always told me he chose Turbo because he was the runt of the litter and he had so much spunk. He named him Turbo because he could outrun just about any dog and when he got going he would tear around faster than seemed possible. Pit Bulls are known to be active, happy dogs and they are great with other pets and kids. When Marx and Maddox first met Turbo they put him through every test a toddler can imagine and he never once snapped at them or showed his teeth, just layed down and took it. He was a lot of fun for them and a great companion for Ben. It was just the two of them for a long time and when we first met Turbo was not impressed with me at all. He did not like that I took his place by Ben on the couch and I took Ben away a lot. He eventually decided that if there was going to be a woman around it might as well be me and we got to be pretty good friends over the years. I did make Ben kick him off the bed, I will defend myself here and say that I didn't really want to kick
Turbo off the bed, I wanted to kick my own dog, Shryn off the bed because she is huge and she spreads out and takes up the whole freaking thing, Turbo was actually really great to have in the bed, he would curl up at Ben's feet and stay there all night long, never moved. (Sorry, Turbo, if I could have kept her off and let just you on, I would have.) He did drive me crazy because he urinated on everything that did not smell like him and that is just disgusting, Ben had refused to get him neutered when he was a puppy and it's not such a great idea to neuter and older Pit Bull, but he was a good dog and right up to the very end he lived up to his name. 100 miles an hour at the push of a button! He was always faster than Shryn, even when she was a puppy and he was 3 years old. Turbo was one in a million too, slightly retarded we are convinced, he could only wag his tail one way which made him do this funny dance when he got excited that Ben dubbed "the super C", he would also hop around on just his two front legs when he got super excited, he always had to have a sock in his mouth when he met Ben at the back door. We had some battles over the stupid socks that Turbo carried around. I swear he ate half of them, and the other half he bit a hole in or ripped apart with Shryn. Socks were Turbos favorite thing, he prefered Bens and he prefered them dirty. I cannot tell you how many half pairs of socks Ben now has because of his dog! Turbo went on his last camping trip with Ben about 3 weeks ago. Ben and his friend Andy took Turbo and Shryn and both of Andy's dogs up above Payson and hiked through some switchback for a couple of days. Ben said that Turbo was just like he always was on a camping trip, romping through the stream with Shryn and walking ahead of Ben on the trail to scope things out, he loved being outdoors and could handle just about any kind of terrain, ben had nicknamed him the "Mountain Goat" because he would climb over anything without hesitation. After that trip Turbo began to deteriorate. At first we didn't really notice anything was wrong with him, then one day I saw him trying to urinate in the backyard and he was getting nothing out. The same thing had happened a few years ago and I took some extreme measures to fix the problem, that time it was a blockage in his urethra. This time I gave it a couple of days to see if anything changed, it did, it got worse. Only this time he had different symptoms, which I looked up, of course, everything I came across said that the problem was more than likely his prostate and for a dog his age (Pit Bulls life expectancy is between 8-12 years) and being unaltered (not nuetered) there was not much we could do without the aide of special testing at the vet and if it was cancer there was no point in treating it, he would die anyway. We do not have the extra money to spend on a vet visit so we made the decision that if he was really that sick and he was going to pass away we had to let him go. I know it killed Ben to decide that. Last Friday I spent most of the day with my Mom watching my brothers kids and Ben worked all day so we got home late that night. Turbo was outside in the backyard and Ben went to check on him, he was curled up in his hole under our bedroom window and Ben came in and asked if he could bring him in for the night so he at least would not be outside, he could tell he was not doing well. Ben brought him in and laid him on the futon on an old comforter, it didn't take long for Turbo to start moaning, it was the sadest sound. Turbo tried to get up at one point and Ben had to help him get off the futon, he stumbled across the room and barely made it to the kennel. We knew he was in bad shape at that point. He laid in the kennel and moaned most of the night, at 4 am Ben moved him to the shop so he would not wake up Deacon. When we got up in the morning at 8 I went to check on him, he was quiet so I put my hand on his side and I knew he was gone. Ben was behind me and I couldn't turn to look at him, I sat down on the floor by Turbo and he knew. I have rarely seen a man cry, the only time I can remember my Dad crying was when my cousin was killed, so I was not prepared for Ben's tears. It broke my heart to see him cry over his buddy, he was already late for work, but he sat there for a while with him. I had Tim take Turbo's body to the vet clinic up the street after he got up, funny enough, they don't just take the body and burry it, the options they give are cremation and they handle the ashes or cremation and YOU handle the ashes. I knew Ben was going to want the ashes back so we now have to find an urn for the ashes of a dog. Never thought I would have
that in my house. (Anybody else reminded of Meet the Fockers?)
Ben and I made a list of the cars we have had since we met, here's what we came up with: A 1989 Honda Accord, A 1989 Volvo wagon, A 1986 Chevy Blazer, A 1991 Chevy Suburban, A 1998 Ford Taurus (worst car experience of my life, but that's a whole other story! I actually did a voluntary repo on this car and I NEVER heard anything from the finance company or the dealer, which is not normal for a repo, they should have been down my throat for the money, but Nope, nothing, I am pretty sure they figured out it was a lemon and they were in the wrong), and a 1994 Kia Sephia (this was bequethed to me by Kris and Julie when they moved to Florida and has been BY FAR the best car I have had in the past 5 years, we did have a few issues with it for a while, but once we worked the kinks out and put a new radiator in it, that little Kia has run like a champ! 15 years old and barely 90k miles, the one downfall is that the a/c doesn't work in it and after a while in the heat it gets a little unbearable, it's not such a pretty car anymore and it has some issues with the door panels on the inside, I can tell one of the regulators in the driver door is not workin right also, but it runs!) so getting a new car for us is like a fantasy come true. I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that I would always have a crappy car until I got out of school and could afford to purchase a new one on my own. Well, when we did taxes this year, Ben got back about 3 times what he was expecting in a tax return and he said we would buy a car with it, I dragged my feet and kept thinking there was no way it was gona happen, the check was on the fridge for months and finally Ben got on me about it and told me I needed to hurry up and get the car found and bought, otherwise I was gona be bringing this baby home in the Kia! I was going to go looking with my Dad (If there is anyone you want looking at cars with you, it is my Dad, if something is wrong with it that is gona cause problems, he will find it! He is picky as heck and that is exactly what I needed! FYI, Ben has not been so great at picking good cars in the past) this week but talking to both Dad and Ben we decided that it would be better for Ben to go look with him. So, the men went and found this pretty little thing! It's a 2007 Suzuki Forenza, has about 35,000 miles on it. I drove it home today and it rides like a dream and the a/c blows so cold I had to turn it down, Deacon crashed in the backseat he was so comfy. There is a ton of room on the inside too, it could easily fit adults in the back and they would have plenty of room, there's also a working cd player which is not a necessity but definately a plus! I keep telling Ben how cute it is and he says I am not allowed to call it that! I love it, it's just what we need right now and will get me through the next few years of school with a lot less headache! So, anyone wana go on a road trip? :) 
Deacon thought it was so fun to sit with Daddy in the front seat, he was not pleased when I put him back in the carseat. Ben looks pretty good in it, huh?
He got scared and ran away as soon as I turned on the mixer (seriously, this kid is such a little wuss! He is scared of any appliance that makes noise, this includes the vacuum and the blender) but as soon as I was done he came back into the kitchen and sampled our dough, he must have approved because he licked off both mixers and I gave him a little spoonful also. I know, I know, raw eggs and blah, blah, blah....I think he will be alright. He wanted to eat all the dough and got mad at me when I put it into the loaf pans, I could not convince him the bread would be better than the dough.
