Since We Have Nothing Better To Do...

and there is something completely wrong with us, we decided to get a puppy. You see E's parents never got him a dog which he has always wanted. He had been talking more and more about it over the past few years and I was able to successfully hold him off. But now, he has enlisted the help of two little girls to help plead his case. e has been asking since Monterey when we were going to get a dog. She actually decided that it would be OK for Buddy to die so that she could get a dog. KK even would ask, 'can me get a dog Mama?'. And now, we actually have a yard... I didn't stand a chance.

Meet Isis... a not so puppy puppy.

We had been looking everywhere over the past few days and just couldn't figure out how to find a darn dog. All of the breeders we found were hours away and we didn't really want to go to a shelter and get an animal with lots of baggage. We finally looked up the classifieds in the Washington Post and happened to find lots of ads for lab puppies and actually found a lady in our area... just 20 minutes away. She told us that she had 2 female yellow lab puppies that were 12 weeks old. The price was right and we headed out to look... cash in hand.

We pulled up to this beautiful house with horses and dogs... a hobby farm, I guess. It seemed like the perfect place. As soon as we pulled up, we saw the dogs in the 'play yard'... 2 English Bulldogs and 1 yellow lab. Bonnie descended from the porch to greet us, enrobed in soiled barn attire and front tooth protruding ever so nicely. She told us that we got there too quick... she was able to get one of the dogs in the house, but the other was still in the yard. We headed over to meet her. Dog #1 was extremely friendly and excited to see us. She was big, but cute. Bonnie told us that she was going to be 100 lbs. After playing, we headed in to see dog #2. We were warned that she was a little shy and would need to warm up a little bit. Shy might have been an understatement... the dog wouldn't even look at us. She sat there while we petted her and e fell in love with her. She wanted to get her 'because she was sad'. That's our girl... she's going to save the world some day. We somehow convinced her to head outside and take another look at the other dog... we were concerned that a 'nervous' dog would not do well with KK (those that know her will understand that decision). When we stopped petting dog #2, she got up and we noticed that she had soiled herself. Yep, good idea to go look at the other dog.

We decided that she was the one. I paid Bonnie our money, signed some sort of document that said she wasn't responsible for anything... including Parvo (see she was selling the dogs for a friend who was in the process of moving), and we were on our way. After further inspection of the document and the dog, we decided that we should call a vet since we had 48 hours to determine whether or not the dog had a life threatening genetic disorder in order to receive our money back. The people that we are renting from happened to leave all sorts of magnets on the fridge for us, one of which was a number for a wonderful vet. The news we received wasn't so wonderful. Instead of being 12 weeks old, our puppy is actually 4 1/2 months old. Although she was supposedly de-wormed a total of 4 times, she was riddled with round worms. She has juvenile cataracts in her right eye, probably due to blunt force trauma, and will probably lose vision in that eye... unless, of course, we opt to bring her to a doggie ophthalmologist. She also has a severe overbite and we have to keep an eye on the bottom teeth when they come in so that they don't puncture the roof of her mouth. If they don't correct themselves, then capping the teeth is an option.

Did I mention that she smelled? I don't think that she had ever had a bath and had spent her whole life outside in a play yard.

We have made great strides in potty training and stair walking... apparently she had never seen a set of stairs... ever.

With all that though, she is a great dog. We are happy to have her. We feel like we did the right thing... a really expensive pet rescue... and she is so happy to be here.

Moving... Stinks!!

Normally, we LOVE to move. I know, strange, but we do.

We actually spend weeks prior to our moves de-cluttering, purging and organizing. Before the movers actually come, we stage everything... all pictures are put together, all of our electronics are hand packed in their original boxes, things that shouldn't be packed are placed in a room labeled 'DO NOT PACK', etc., etc. We do that so that we can have an easy un-pack on the other end. And it usually works... until this move.

We thought that we had the greatest packers when we were in CA. We were so impressed with their speed and the supervisor came out to pack our plasma and he told us that we had his 'A team' packing us. We should have had an idea when one guy actually packed the cat litter box, food and water... and yes, they were all full. Common sense would tell you that if we wanted the litter box to be packed, we would have emptied the poop, but who are we to judge?

Anyway, so it is now 8 days since we have received our household goods and we are still not completely unpacked... mostly, but not completely. Some would say that's pretty good, but for us... not so much. Our last move, we unpacked in 2 days.

Enough rambling... lets take a look at what we unearthed, shall we?

Here is a wardrobe from KK's room.
Underneath the toys and books are E's uniforms, including his Choker Whites... nice.

What the... ?
If you can't tell, it's a box of laundry detergent packed with Woolite, stain spray, dryer sheets... all neatly taped inside the box. Problem is, they packed it in the same box with the turkey roaster and rack which punctured the boxes (yep, there were two of these babies) and powdered detergent was everywhere.

Oooh... another wardrobe. What's in this one? It doesn't seem very full.

Oh... OK... yep, two leather jackets DO provide the right amount of padding for a semi-precious stone globe that E so lovingly lugged around Hong Kong to bring it home to me.

And one last thing for the record books. This box was in our garage... empty. Why not use it to pack in? What should we pack in it?

Good, pack the glass fish tank in the All-Clad box. It is the right size. Make sure you write 'Fragile' on it somewhere so that it's OK.

Oops... you forgot to put any sort of packing material in with it to keep it safe. Did you really forget?

There are so many more things that are just not right but that's just part of military moving. We should be used to it by now, but I don't think you can ever get used to absolute disregard for your things.

Next move, I swear we are doing it ourselves.

Note to Self

Next house should be ranch style.

Introducing...

Hailey 'M' ... named for e's great friends from CA.

We also refer to her as 'Pinkie Pie' (KK has a great love for My Little Ponies and her eyes really are pink).


Why do we have another hamster you ask? Well, after 14 days, 14 states, 3 hotels, 5 relative/friend houses, 4219 miles & 74 hours in the car, our other hamster 'Hamsley/Snow Princess', decided to off herself. Apparently, adventure is the name of her game. Being sedentary just wasn't her thing. E found her the morning after we got to the East Coast, hind end outside of her cage... we have no idea how he did it, but it wasn't pretty.

e was beside herself with the news. We had a full funeral, complete with flowers and remembrances... and a morning full of tears and sorrow.

We headed to the nearest pet shop to find a suitable alternative. What we found was pretty cute... although she is a bit of a nibbler. One crisis averted.


We also lost our cat, again, and spent the last day and a half looking for him. We informed the neighbors, the pet microchip company, and area shelters. This morning he appeared in our bedroom at 2 AM... we couldn't have been happier. There was no way that we were ready to deal with two pet losses in one week.

Snow Much Fun!

We just can't get enough of the snow. On Christmas Day Night (is that right?), my sister and I took the girls out to sled and play in the snow... and we had a blast! It was lightly snowing which made the pictures look so cool. e is going to be so upset when we get to our new house and there won't be several inches of snow to play in. I guess we will always have Minnesota.

e and my niece attacking my sister.

KK and me.

The Snow Princess .

One cute pink bean.

The smiles say it all.

Hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas, white or not.

Driving in a Winter Wonderland

We left Central MN this morning to drive down to Southern MN to visit our great college friends. We decided it was a good idea even after reading the news story about the huge storm pounding the Central US (see post below).

Here is how the drive started out.

A little blowing snow is nothing for native Minnesotans... who cares if we haven't lived here for years?

We weren't the only crazy ones on the road.

Ahhh... why is traffic stopped?

Ohhh... now we see.


Get us off this road.

Luckily, when it got really bad, we happened to be 2 exits away from my sisters' house. Sorry, college friends, we'll have to catch you later.

Wish Us Luck!

Yahoo! is my homepage on my browser and this is the top story in news...

Storm blasts Central US, at least five die

What the heck are we doing here???