I've been tagged...

I sit here with my new pretty green laptop computer... home from work because Bekah is sick.. and I got tagged.

Here are the rules:
1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.
2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name).
3. After you are tagged, you need to update your blog with your middle name and your answers.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and that they need to read your blog for details.)

L- Like to scrapbook
y- Young... I am very young..
n- Not a great housekeeper... I can't stay focused
n- never been to new york

I am going to tag: Parkie, AmyG, Sue and Paula

So, alot's been happening...

Flat Kendall has been visiting from Alaska. She is a class project from my Mom's Cousin's granddaughter Kedall. They send the flat representation of themselves to someone, who then sends it on. They learn about geography (you send them a postcard from your location), culture (you send pictures of what you did with Kendall) and they help some schools in Africa (you send a book to one of the 3 schools in Africa) I need to send her on her way somewhere else. She went on a missions trip to Mexico with Hannah (and Hannah did take pictures, but I accidentally erased Hannah's memory card... I would KILL her if she did that to me! She was very gracious and forgave me after much much much remorse on my part) she spent Christmas with us and Kendall has met Kiwi! I don't think that I will be sending the picture of the dog EATING Kendall to Alaska!

This week we have seen mostly RAIN! We have gotten 6 1/2 inches of rain (and it is pouring again this evening.. so that number is climbing) this month. The average rainfall for January is 2 1/2 inches, so we are pretty saturated.

Poor Kiwi, she thinks that we are torturing her, making her go outside in the rain and WIND (more on that coming up) to go to the bathroom. When I open the door, she looks out, looks up at me and then tries to sneak back to her kennel!

We have settled into a routine, Kiwi and I. She sleeps in a kennel in our room. Our bedroom has a "hallway" from the office to the bedroom that goes past the bathroom and the door to the back yard... it's all tile, so we thought that with the tile, the door to the outside and the ability to gate it off, this would be her perfect hang out. So, when I get up in the morning, first thing I do is let the dog out to go potty. She goes, comes in for a treat, then I lock her in the bathroom with me while I get ready for work. Once I am ready, she goes out again to poop, then we are ready to wake up the girls. She loves this part... not so sure if the girls love it or not.

Then we play for a while as the girls get ready for school, then I gate her up in her "area" and head to work. After work, and before I pick up Bekah from school, I come home, let Kiwi out, and then we go get the kids. She loves riding in the car... although, she is getting to adventurous and walks around the van now as I drive (she used to stay in her bed in the seat) so I will be buying a harness to buckle her in. Then we all play with her, she cuddles with us on the couch, we have dinner and ignore her, and then when it is bed time, I say "Kennel" and she goes right in to go to sleep. She really is a smart little dog.

So that is our "normal" routine. But for the past few days, we have been having a little change up. The WIND has been incredible. The gusts were in excess of 40 mph. That with the rain saturated ground made for some interesting sights. This morning we saw many BIG trees down on our way to church. We lost power on Saturday evening around 9pm and it didn't come back on until 1am or so. Well, the last time I took Kiwi out.. by battery operated camping lantern since there was no light to flip on, it was too dark to see. This morning, when I got up... we trekked outside, and this is what I saw!

Then we came back in, I got ready for church.. normal day, right? Wrong! Kiwi gets out of her bed, and stands by the bathroom door, nose to the door... I think "she is telling me she needs to go out!" this is a first! She has never indicated a need to go out before! BUT because of the fence down, and my fierce desire NOT to be chasing my dog through the neighbor's yard in my robe, I decide that I need to get her leash. She follows me out to the kitchen.. the leash isn't there, I locate it on the dining room table, but then I can find the dog! She is not coming when I call, there is no noise, I am looking all over. When I finally find her, she is coming down the hallway and heads to her bed. NOW she has no desire to go out. Well I am sure you can figure out what that means! She already went... so now I have to search the house for her accident. (she seems to like Hannah's room) So I am HAPPY that she showed me she needed to go out, but I now know that she means NOW! So we are BOTH learning!

Revenge???

SO, we have had a great first week with our puppy, Kiwi. She is a cute, loving, SMART little dog. We have had not one accident in the house... that is until today!!!! This morning, the patio door was open (because it was 70 degrees outside today...sorry to gloat!) and she actually went outside, unprompted and took care of business!!! I was so excited! Then later in the morning, the door was closed and she went to the door and waited until Hannah noticed and opened it for her. These were the first times that SHE initiated the outdoor adventure. We gave her extra love and praise for those times. THEN this afternoon, we gave her a bath.. we had to wait for 10 days past her surgery to bathe her... today was the day! She was NOT happy about the bath! Since then, she had 3 "accidents" in the house!!!! I am beginning to think that these are NOT accidents, but revenge for the BATH!!!!! I don't think that I will survive this puppy hood thing!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it has been an eventful 2008 for us so far! We made a trip over to Fresno to celebrate the new year with our friends the Hoffmans. The kids had fun staying up until almost 2am.. watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. My kids wanted to know why that "old guy who talks funny" is on the show. Poor Dick Clark... I wonder when they will decide it is time to let him retire?





Our other news begins a bit sooner... The girls have been BEGGING for a puppy for years now. Tim was just not going to go down that road. Well, the old softy finally relented. For Christmas, he gave them a dog bed and some dog food dishes... the instructions were to look for a puppy that would NEVER be too big for this little bed. SO we began to look. There were lots of puppies in the paper, but I have a hard time trying to figure out why a mutt that would have been given away outside a grocery store 20 years ago is now worth $500!!!!! Designer dogs my eye... your Pug and a poodle had a tryst and now you are selling Puggle puppies! Sheesh... so we also checked local shelters. LOTS of dogs, but no puppies. We wanted to get a puppy so the kids could go through the whole growing up period with the puppy.
Well, I checked pet finder.com and put in our address... not too many puppies with in 100 miles. BUT if I put in the Hoffman's zip code in Fresno, HUNDREDS of Puppies were listed. So we thought, while in Fresno for the week, we would look there.
Dawn and I decided to drive to the SPCA on New Years Day. They weren't answering the phone, but we thought that maybe they would be open. THEY WERE! But now I am there with no kids... what to do? I started taking pictures of puppies with my phone and sending them to Hannah! We saw TONS of Chiuaua mix puppies and lots of HOUND mix puppies. I wasn't fond of the look of most of the Chiuaua puppies.. buggy eyes. And I was afraid the hound mix puppies might get to big. I was getting a little discouraged, but the SPCA gal said, "try next door at the stray dog facility.. they may have some"
So we did. There were some cute big puppies, and then I come around the corner and Dawn is holding a cute little puppy.. she was TINY! There was a stray dog with a litter of pups. They had been held for the 7 days in order for an owner to claim them, but the 7 days had been up on the 29th and because of the holiday they hadn't been moved to the adoptable pens yet. There was just the one little female all the others were males. We had decided that we probably would take a female and avoid having a "leg lifer" in the house. So Dawn held on to the little girl puppy (there was a couple waiting for her to put the puppy down because they also only wanted a girl) while I took a picture and sent it to Hannah. Then I made a quick check on all the other pens to see what else there was... but this sweet little dog just out shined all the others. She is about 8weeks old they think. The mother they say is a Terrier Mix (I found out that they mostly guess either, chiuaua, terrier or Hound if they are not sure!) but she looked to me like she had some spaniel in her. She had the face and ears of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, but obviously was only half or less.. One of the puppies had a wiry bushy face like a Jack Russel Terrier. So, we paid for the puppy to be adopted, spayed, and micro chipped. And left her there. They said that she would be spayed either Wednesday or Thursday and could come home the same day. We were planning on coming home on Thursday evening, so we thought that would be great. Well, Wednesday, she wasn't done... but they said she would be spayed first thing Thursday Morning. Thursday afternoon, I called, and they said that there had been no surgeries that morning because of an emergency. SO, she would be spayed in the afternoon and we could pick her up Friday morning... Well, the Hoffman's were gracious enough to let us stay one more night (the kids were elated to stay longer with their friends!) and we picked up Kiwi (the girls finally decided on a name) on Friday at 11:30 am. She is too cute and so far... knock on wood, she has not had one accident in the house. We decided to "kennel train" her so last night she slept in the little dog crate. She only whined for a minute and then settled down to sleep. She woke up at 1:30 am and I let her outside, where she tinkled and went back to the crate to sleep some more. She woke up at 8am and has been enjoying being part of our family! She is really cute, but I am beginning to wonder not if she will get to big for the bed, but if she will ever grow into it! Right now she only weighs 3.6 pounds!