Vacation!

Wow, who knew that settling into life with a puppy would prompt a much needed blog break? I knew it would be work, but the break part was unexpected. It's all good though. Murphy is fully comfortable in his new space, Sebastian is very much in love (and treats him as he would any younger sibling - complete with wrestling) and Ben and I are just flowing with the changes. Unfortunately, my break may be extended a tad bit longer. We decided to go spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Ben's mama in the Palm Springs area. Yes, we decided to take the puppy with us. Surely many fantastic photos and a few stories should result from this trip. I'm looking forward to finally having something "worth sharing" to contribute to this space again.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Hot tubs & warm weather, here we come!

It's a BOY!

A few days back I spotted this sweet little Irish Terrier on Petfinder.com. Wasatch Animal Rescue had rescued him from a puppy mill in Missouri and they were looking for a family that might be able to offer him some stability. Benjamin and I had decided that we still wanted to try to find the right dog, but that we weren't in a hurry about it (especially after our less than stellar experience with Jasper a few months back). We thought maybe sometime around Spring... Well, you know how that goes. We put the idea out there and manifested our match. So here he is: our nameless 4 month old cutie. We have narrowed the potential names down to just a few faves and are waiting to see how his personality unfolds.

Of course, being an Irish Terrier, it is only fitting that he bear an Irish name. What do you think? Fergus? Murphy? Finnegan? Clover? We're still open to suggestions... As you can see, Sebastian is in love. He is already covering the poor dog in kissins and huggins. A boy and his dog; perfection.

Our family is happy to finally have a canine friend in the house. Now we are just keeping our fingers crossed that my crazy deaf cat gives him some space and a warm welcome.

***Update: The winning name is MURPHY! We spent the day throwing names around and getting to know him a little bit. This evening we asked Sebastian what he thought the puppy's name should be. Actually, we asked him 3 times to be sure. Each time he answered "Murphy". The first time we asked he looked at us like we were crazy for not knowing; so matter-of-fact. It seems fitting that the boy would name his first real puppy friend. I'm sure going to enjoy watching them grow together.

Trick or Treat!

I had it all planned out. Jack O' lantern shaped pizza for dinner, a glass of wine each for Mama and Papa, Cupcakes as our "treat" and an eve of greeting costumed kidlets from our porch. We even gave the front porch an eerie glow and one carved pumpkin.

Sebastian was having loads of fun jumping on the sofa and helping Mama answer the door... and then he tried to escape with the crowd. We brought him back inside and he kept demanding "more kids!". We talked about why the kids were ringing our bell and taking treats before moving on to the next house. Sebastian thought about it all for a few minutes and then proclaimed, "Sebastian trick or treat! Sebastian ring bell!". So, we left Papa to tend the door and off we went with the intention of just hitting a couple houses on our block. Sebastian was having so much fun (and his smallness and precociousness was such a hit at each house) that we ended up making a loop around the block. We met some super friendly neighbors along the way who invited us over to a hot dog BBQ/hot cocoa shindig in their front yard. How could we pass that up?! Bas and I went home, fetched Papa, turned off the porch light and went over to mingle with the neighbors. It was all so very whimsical, unexpected and just plain fun. Of course, Bas scored enough candy to keep our household sweet for some time to come.