Another Visit to the Breeders!

We now have "official" tags and collars. The boys had such a great time. Before we left three of the puppies had fallen asleep on my husbands lap. He now feels a little mushy about them too, although I am sure that he would deny it. Twelve days to go until they come home with us. I am going to have to change Dakotas tags. We named him Dakota "tough" after several other "tough" names in his bloodline except that the breeder informed me yesterday that the correct spelling was "Tuff". Oh well, I will put that on my To-Do list. We are very fortunate that the breeders are good friends of ours so we have the entire inside scoop on the personalities and traits of the entire bloodline and the two previous litters. Not to mention that we get to go and "hang out" and visit the pups whenever we want! These are going to be some SPOILED dogs....

Pig Pen Reborn

I dearly wish that I had a picture to post with this little tidbit but I was in crisis prevention at the moment and did not think of it. Too bad though, because it would have been a good one. A Kodak moment for sure.

I got a call from the school this afternoon in regards to my eldest son. It seems that he was building sand castles at recess near a mud puddle. You can see were this is going can't you? Someone was chasing someone who was chasing someone else and Boo moved out of the way (backwards) tripped and fell (and apparently rolled) through the mud puddle. The giggling secretary on the phone informed me that although they had spare clothes at school for emergencies, this was beyond the basic emergency.

He had mud filled ears, mud spike hair, mud covered clothes, mud slathered glasses, mud filled pockets, and last but not least (which the secretary found very funny) mud encrusted and completely filled tennis shoes. My son looked as if he had been dipped in a muddy fondue pot.

A vision of Boo rolling in successive turns like a hot dog in a convenience store glass oven ran through my head, he assures me that he did no such thing. So I went and got a sheet (to spare my car the catastrophe) and left to picked him up.

I might have been a little more stern with him but when I walked into the office both secretaries laughed and pointed to the seats behind me. I turned... I couldn't help it, I laughed too. I just about lost it when he jumped up and mud pooffed out from him in a big cloud, all I could think of was Pig Pen from Peanuts. Let them laugh I thought (in a very exasperated moment) they have to clean up all the chunks of mud dropping off of him with every step. Off we headed to the car leaving a trail behind us...

Ok, he gets a "get out of jail free" card..... He was so pathetic looking that I had to take pity on him. To top it all off, he had a substitute today. The laughing gals behind the desk were all to happy to share Boo's thoughts on the matter with me. At the end of recess, when the substitute asked Boo what they should do about the situation, he sighed and said "I think we better let my mom deal with it."

Oh the joys of Motherhood....

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.....

Wendy and Leslie at grandparents
house in Cle Elum Many years ago...

It's here! The first snow of the season. Wet and sloppy snow but snow none the less. It would have helped to have several more good weeks of weather for traveling to Washington but hey this is Colorado, if you don't like the weather wait ten minutes. My children woke up with a squeal and a holler and ran to get snow boots, scarves and mittens. Funny considering we have about an inch of slop on the ground. This was the first morning in weeks that not only were we on time to leave for school but we were all ready about twenty minutes early! I can clearly remember the adolescent urge to simply "touch" the first snow of the year. Now that I am old and cranky my wonder and awe for the snow are saved for ski boot whispering powder. The rainy slop just makes my drive miserable. Not to ruin the special moment though for my children, I trotted off to the kitchen to make hot chocolate with marshmallows. Now that the kids are off to school, I am sitting here with a nice cup of tea pondering whether or not to start more packing or sneak in an hour nap back under the warm blissfulness of my bedroom blankets.....

I thought you were getting one?!?

Yes, we went to pick out our "puppy" today. Suddenly one turned into two, much to my husbands chagrin. Don't feel to bad for him... I will make it up to him. Our hearts melted when one feisty little pup took after my oldest son with a tail wagging pounce and another rolled over on my youngest lap and just looked at him like "please just take me home." Two pups for two boys with matching personalities! It was so hard to say good bye. Two and half more weeks and "Trigger Happy" and "Dakota Tough" will be ready to come home. We can't wait!

A New Home And A New Addition

We'll the excitement is building. The countdown is on. Shad has been recalled to his previous employment and we are feverishly packing and planning a move back to Washington State. In the midst of all this chaos we are also getting a new family member. An eight week old AKC Shih Tzu. My children and husband are keeping themselves occupied with naming the puppy. At this point the name is changing daily. I should have pictures to post after our visit at the breeders on Sunday. They say a new puppy is like having a two year old in the house so perhaps this will be an unusual cure for my current baby blues.

This is it. A man, a woman (who is close to crazy at the moment) two hyperactive sons and a new puppy (with all the uncontrollable peeing and whining) trekking across the states during one of the worst gas hikes we have ever seen. Am I crazy or what? Ok, a moment of reality here… I could be from the south and have no job or home… I will be quiet now.


It has only been a year and a half since our last move so at this point I am ready to go crazy. Shad and I were in the same place for nine years before this, so it feels like utter chaos to me. This is a good and necessary but heart wrenching move as we are leaving many family members and friends behind here in Colorado. The weather has turned sharply cool in the last two days so it feels like everything in the world is changing as fast as the colors of the fall leaves. New employment for both of us, a new home, new schools etc. I kept trying to come up with some witty analogy or a funny story in the midst of all of this but my mind is failing me, I am just too tired!!! I am looking forward to seeing all of my old friends and my family in Washington. It feels like an eternity since we were there.

Health update for those of you who I haven’t called back in the last couple of weeks: I am not ignoring your emails or your voice messages! I have been trying to get to bed earlier in the evenings since my energy level is in the basement. Transitioning into all of the new meds for my RA has been difficult. The last set of blood work came back elevated again but I am coping pretty well. I have started losing my hair (because of a certain medication) and that has been more traumatic than anything. I don't know many women that could handle that very well. I hate to say this and risk offending anyone but if you have cancer and go through chemotherapy people expect you to lose your hair. It is harder to deal with when you talk about losing it and people say "hu? I thought you had Rheumatoid Arthritis?" It’s difficult to explain because people think…. Arthritis, joint pain, old person disease, not a big deal right? Well I guess you could keep thinking that or you could actually do some research. I don’t mean to get snotty, but a few well meaning individuals have said some pretty thoughtless things this week. If I lose my hair on top of it, I may have to take myself to the Caribbean to recooperate!!! Come back with nice shiny TAN head at least! Maybe the roller coasters at Six Flags this week-end will whip out a few more chunks and I can stop my denial that it is happening! That's it, if I am going to lose it I might as well do it in "style" with people coughing up hairballs and shrieking all around me as it flies in their face!