The more I observe Ben, the less there is any doubt in my mind whatsoever that Chuck was part Dane. He is sweet, snuggly, and a certifiable Couch Potato waiting to happen. Notice the forelorn, "Look-how-bad-I-have-it," banished to the floor at only 7 weeks, woe is me look on his face. I was actually sitting on this pillow playing with the little tyke, and got up to make coffee. I might have been gone 5 minutes.
I never would have guessed that a puppy could be so easy to train. We are so thrilled with this little snuggle rat. It's just like having a new baby in the house. He wakes up, goes out to potty, comes in and eats, goes back outside, plays for half an hour or so, then heads for his crate and crashes out for an hour or two. Then we do it all over again. The crate training has been perfect, I have never had a puppy that did not "go" in the house. This is just a dream. 
........BIG BEN!!!
Natalie loves to watch TV from here, perched on the edge of the coffee table in this laundry basket. She throws in a pillow and a blanket, and VIOLA! It's the perfect little papasan chair.
The girls spent the morning turning the house into a war zone and listening to each other's hearts. Notice their makeshift exam table, a crumpled laundry basket and a pillow. They took turns being patient and nurse, and telling each other, "Okay, take a deeeeep breath." Then whoever was the "patient" would crack up the instant the stethoscope touched her and say, "My turn!" It was adorable.
"Jesus, please bless my whole family, and bless the guppy, and my mommy and daddy, and my grammy cuz shes my grammy, and pappap bc he's pappap, and my grandmother is my grandmother , and granddaddy is granddaddy, and grammy, and grand pap, and …I don’t have anymore grandparents, that all. The end. I mean, amen."
We left the girls with their grandparents and spent the weekend on the boat off the coast of Shalimar, Florida. What an amazing trip. There is nothing like the Florida Gulf Coast - the water is crystal clear and you can see the bottom even when it's 30 feet deep. We didn't catch a lot (it's December) but we saw a ton of fish in the water and a shark in the bay. We reeled in a couple of remoras; they look like aliens, with a giant sucker thing for a forehead, and Jesse caught an eel, that was crazy. By far the most bizarre thing we caught was something that looked like a toad with wings and three toes, called a Sea Robin. I'm not kidding, we caught several of these and they were weird! Pictures above are from the internet, guy holding a remora, a Sea Robin. The ocean was a dead calm all weekend, which was amazing. We went about 22 miles out and it was so beautiful, not seeing any land and the water being so smooth, it was like a giant bedspread.
I finally got hold of myself enough to go back out there. He's in such a great spot. We miss him so much.
On Monday, December 4th, we took Charlie to the vet because he was lethargic and not eating. The vet said his bladder was the size of a football and he needed immediate surgery. Charlie had cancer all around and inside his bladder. The vet said he didn't know how he was still going. Jesse made the (heartwrenching) decision to put him down. He never woke up from the surgery. Jesse buried him out behind the house, in a beautiful spot, and covered his grave with a huge stone from nearby. 
