Merry Christmas!

                                        
From the Kilpatricks


Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Let me explain.

Due to public outcry, I must explain what did not take place on August 6th.

On August 6th, a post was not dedicated to Bunny.

She turned 10 with no fanfare.

It's just not right people.

How could such a milestone take place and not be documented? Well, if memory serves me well, and it often doesn't, our life was insanely hectic at the time. "Insanely hectic" would pretty much characterize 2011 for us. Therefore, August 6th came during that time frame.

Sorry, Bun. Thankfully she has great patience and is willing to overlook the fact that this post is 4+ months late.

I decided that instead of doing a "through the years" album, I would just show a few pictures of Bunny that I've taken in the last few months.

It's pretty obvious that Bunny is "on guard" in the pictures below. Anytime we are outdoors with the children, she is on "high alert". I cannot conceal the details of "high alert" since it is a matter of security for our family. I will tell you that in the below pictures, Bunny is setting a security parameter in what was our backyard at the time.

You would think that the lack of sight in her left eye would lessen her ability to protect. However, her loss of sight has only proven to strengthen her other senses.

And to date, we have never had a break in.

Coincidence?

I think not.

All business as the children play in the background.

This look is clearly saying,"Make my day, punk."

Such concentration.

See the gentleness displayed as she walks over to Jack. It's her instinct, I tell ya.

This last picture was taken recently. I had seen a mouse. The best thing to do when you see a mouse is to position your chihuahua's bed in front on the last location in which the perpetrator was spotted.

I haven't seen him since.

And now I will leave you with a story from a few years ago.

I was exactly 7 months pregnant with Ellie Kate.

Ross and I lived on 120 acres of land in Troy.

I was taking a class at Troy University at the time. As I left that morning for school, I thought that I would leave Bunny outside with our new puppy, Pookie. I thought for sure Pookie would not run off since Bunny was there to keep her company.

We lived on the top of a hill, quite a distance from the road.

I watched the little white chihuahua fade into the distance as I drove down the driveway. She was use to being kept indoors and no doubt had a look of denial on her miniature face. She displayed a worried brow and that should have been my first clue that I was making a wrong decision. Getting fresh air was not on her list of things to do for the day.

Nevertheless, I drove away.

I returned a few hours later.

I drove into our yard and was immediately greeted by Pookie but there was no Bunny to be found.

I knew instantly that something was terribly wrong.

After looking all around and calling time and again for Bunny, I went inside to call Ross at work.

He was rather alarmed as his 7 month pregnant wife cried over the phone,"She's gone!  Bunny's gone!  I can't find her!"

He calmly replied,"It's okay. She'll come back."

I cried,"But she doesn't know where we live!"

And so the search began.

I was waddling around in 100 degree weather when Ross pulled up to help. I had also contacted my Mother who was about an hour away. She called my cousin who brought her boyfriend over.

We split up.

I walked along the edge of the woods calling her name and crying.

I saw something move in the brush. I paused only to realize that it was a wild turkey. The stupid thing started to circle me. I picked up a stick and invisioned the next morning's headline,"Pregnant Woman Killed by Wild Turkey."

Only in Alabama.

Anyway, the bird with the shrunken looking head must have realized my distress because he chose not to attack. I think it was a wise choice on his part.

The search continued for a couple of hours.

Our reinforcements had to leave, but Ross and I continued to look.

We would momentarily go inside to rehydrate. I would sit on the couch and cry for a little while and then we were off again.

The ground search yielded no hard evidence of her whereabouts.

We got in the car and started going door to door.

We even went to the Walmart redistribution center up the road.

Ross made some comment about how someone may have picked her up. He wanted to check the parking lot to see if someone had put her in their car. I dissolved into tears as I contemplated how this scenerio would play out in such sweltering heat. He immediately retracted his statement.

Bless his heart. When you've got a pudgy 7 month pregnant wife looking for her lost chihuahua on a burning hot and humid south Alabama day, well I'm sure "choose your words carefully" is an understatement.

We returned to our driveway passing a flattened carcass in the road. My sweet husband assured me time and again that the poor unfortunate ball of fuzz had been a squirrel.

Just as we were about to pull into our driveway, we decided to drive down the road and visit one more home.

Ross looked into his rearview mirror as a truck had pulled off the road behind us.

A man got out and asked if we were looking for something.

There, sitting in the cab of his truck was B-U-N-N-Y!

Apparently after I left for school that morning, Bunny had trekked the entire way to the road. This saintly gentleman had been passing by and noticed her. He stopped and picked her up, knowing that with those trimmed nails, she belonged to someone. This hunch was further strengthened when his family tried to feed her outside. She had refused to eat until she was taken inside into the air conditioning.

Ross and I returned home after our 3 hour ordeal. We sat on the couch and turned on the Atlanta Braves game. It just so happened to be bring your dog to the park night.

Thinking back on it now. It's very likely that Bunny knew this fact and was hitching her way to the game.

I guess we will never really know.

Anyway,

Happy Birthday, Bunny or as Ross says, "Bunna-potomas!"