Thursday, October 27, 2011

A Birthday, An Explanation, and An Introduction

A Birthday

My oldest girl turned 15 this week!  What a gift our sweet Lucy has been to our family.  Even as a baby, she had this calm maturity about her.  When we moved from Iowa to Washington, eighteen-month-old Lucy carried her  backpack through the airport, leading the way, making sure we were always right behind her, checking to see that I had our tickets, and just keeping us on track for the big move.  She's always been like that.....organized, responsible, and dependable.   And now she's 15 and eligible to start driver's ed.  Surprisingly, she's not itching to get behind the wheel, unlike her older brother, but we can wait...for a while.  Driving Lucy to her many activities takes a large part of my day and on her 16th birthday I want her in line at the DMV.

An Explanation

It's been a long, long time since I've had a month-long lapse in blogging.  It's been busy around here, as usual, but it's gotten busier.  First, we've joined the YMCA and I've been trying to exercise every morning, and second.........

An Introduction


This guy.   Our 11 week-old golden retriever bundle of energy.   It's been nearly 7 years since we've had a puppy at home and holy cow.  Puppies are EXHAUSTING.   Even sweet, mellow, obedient puppies like this little guy are a whole ton of work.   His name, as I've mentioned, had to come from the Peanuts comic strip.   This left us with names like Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus, Rerun, etc.  None of those seemed right.  We all agreed that with his blond hair he kind of looked like Schroeder...


...but Schroeder didn't exactly roll off the tongue for me and you have to say a dog's name about a hundred times a day.   Finally, one seemed right.


Do you remember the name of this character?  Think about it while I indulge in puppy pictures.....


.......Because he gets bigger every day.


 And won't always have the same puppy energy.  (Dang it and thank goodness.)


And he'll loose the puppy fluff.  Don't you want to touch him?


And his first "sit" will always be special.


And puppy tummies are adorable while adult male dogs in this pose are a little obscene.


And Rose won't be able to carry him forever.   

We're thankful to welcome.....

Franklin 

to the family.

He's admirably following in some mighty big paw prints.