Expect the Unexpected

I was so looking forward to this long weekend. We have spent so much of our summer without Ian around, but this long weekend we were going to all be together. It started out just as I had planned. Ian got off work early, came home, and we all went to the pool one last time before the outdoor pools closed. It was a beautiful, warm afternoon and the pool wasn't crowded at all. After we had our fill of sun, water, and splashing, we came home and had a yummy dinner of grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans, and peaches. The evening was topped off with Ian and I watching the movie "Australia." I loved the movie, by the way. It was like a modern Gone With the Wind. Long, but worth it.

Saturday we got up nice and early, packed up some snacks and the kids and hit the road. We drove out to Duchene, UT, about a 3 hour drive, to pick up the cute Springer Spaniel mix dog I posted about a little while ago. We pulled up to the trailer where the dog was (along with about 5 other dogs and a turkey, not kidding) and saw the little puppy run out to us. However, it wasn't as little anymore. Ian asked the guy how old he thought the puppy was. He answered that it was about 4 or 5 months old. Yikes. I quickly texted the owner and asked if when they got the puppy she was sure it was 9 months old and not 9 weeks. "Oh, my husband says 9 weeks." Yikes. Needless to say we came home empty handed. It wasn't a complete loss though since we got to stop on the way back and play at the park for awhile and we did spend the whole day together.

The sign at the park we stopped at in Heber on our way home on Saturday.
The redeeming thing about Saturday was the amazing BYU football opener against Oklahoma. Great game. Getting our cable for free=totally worth it. :) Go Cougs!

Sunday was nice and quiet. We made it through the whole 3 hours of church without incident. Weston bore a really adorable testimony. He is growing up so fast. We came home and had a restful afternoon. I attempted to make potato pancakes out of the leftover mashed potatoes to go with our eggs and bacon, but they did NOT turn out. Oh well. I also baked some cookies. That night we had some friends over and just had a really fun time visiting, laughing, and playing Settlers (even though I did the worst I have ever done).

All this time I had been continuing to look for another dog. There were lots to choose from, but only a couple that looked promising. Sunday evening Ian had planned with the sketchy tree guy to do the rest of our trees today. They were supposed to start at 9am again. Ian told him that if he was here by 9:30am then he would buy the guy lunch, but if he wasn't here by 11am, then the deal was off. Well, sure enough he called at about 10am and had just woken up. At 10:50 he called to say he had forgotten his ladder and had to go back home. Ian just said, well you have until 11. He didn't show up until almost 11:30, so no deal.

All morning I had been looking at dog listings. There was a really cute 2 year old dog at the shelter, a 1 1/2 year old dog someone was re-homing, and a litter of adorable puppies that had caught my eye and were in my price range. I called the shelter and didn't get a response. The lady with the re-homing dog was excited for us to come see her dog, so we planned to go check it out after Davin's nap. We decided not to bring the kids though just in case.

The moment we pulled out of the driveway to take the kids to our neighbor's house and go see the dog, the lady called to say an older couple had just come to see the dog and fallen in love. Sigh. Well, there was still the shelter dog. As we pulled back into the driveway, they called back and said that dog had already been adopted. Sigh again. There were still the puppies, so I ran in the house to get the directions, the ad was listed as sold. I called and the guy said that they were all sold, but that if the sale didn't go through he would call me back. We unloaded the kids from the car. Again. I was pretty disappointed. It looked as though getting a dog was just not in the cards for us at the moment.

We played pillow fight, continued checking dog listings and generally moped a bit. Ian had just left to run to Home Depot and Smiths when my phone rang. It was the puppy guy saying that the lady who was buying the rest of the puppies hadn't gotten back to him, so we could have one. I hurried and took the boys to our friends' house and met back up with Ian at the house. We drove 40 minutes up to Clearfield and met the cutest puppies. They are half Jack Russell Terrier and half Brittany Spaniel. They will be about mid-calf size dogs full grown. We had a little bit of a hard time deciding which one to take home since they were all so cute, but we finally decided on a little brown and white girl.

Sammie (5th from left) with her siblings. This picture was from the ad posted on ksl.
Just before we took her home.
When we got back Ian took the dog out back and I went and picked up the kids. Weston ran out back, so I missed his initial reaction, but he is loving his new dog, Sam. He sat there with her on his lap and petted her into a nap. He kept her company after dinner too. We bbq'd with the Severinson's and enjoyed eating on the patio for the first (and maybe last?) time this summer.
It's still a little surreal that we have a puppy. She is so adorable and I am already in love. We bonded during the car ride home.
So far Sammie seems really mellow and sweet. She hasn't chewed on me once yet. She has been whining a little bit. I think she's lonely. We borrowed an extra kennel that the Severinson's had so that we can start crate/potty training her. The kennel is huge for her, but we sectioned it off so she just has a little cozy space. Davin thought it should be his little cozy space.
Our little girl had a long, busy evening, so she was pretty tired by the time we came in from bbqing and playing outside.
On that note, let the great experiment begin! I'm pretty sure I'm in for midnight potty breaks, accidents, teething, etc., but you know, I am really not too worried about it right this minute. We will be fine. I have 2 kids, I'm sure I can potty train a dog. :)

Our first day with Sammie.

My Favorites

Well, first of all these two are definitely my favorites.
They are such fun boys. Weston is so intelligent and talkative. Seriously, if you call me, you will most likely get to talk to Weston too. He can chat your ear off if he's in the right mood. That picture was taken this morning. He was watching Playhouse Disney this morning and next thing I know he had made a Mickey Mouse flag. I helped him tape the flag part to the "pole" but it was all his idea. Note he is also wearing his Mickey Mouse shirt. Davin just snuck into the picture, but he was cute, so I let him be in it. As soon as I took this he grinned and started clapping.

As most of you know, another favorite of mine is home storage and organization. I bought a toy box this week. I had wanted one awhile back, but the one I wanted had just been discontinued. Sad. Anyway, I found this one at Target (it's by Circo) this week. It was on sale for $45. Not too shabby I thought. It is perfect for all the bigger toys. I have already migrated some stuff into it and it's still only half full. It has freed up some other space too, so we will hopefully have plenty of space come Christmas and Weston's birthday.

Finally, Ian is my favorite. I miss him. He has been working so much, but I am so excited for our weekend (another favorite thing of mine). We have big plans. He is coming home early this afternoon to kick off the fun. I will post all about it at the end of the long weekend. Happy Labor Day!

Coming Soon to UT . . .

That's right folks. It is officially under construction less than 5 miles from my house (in case you are local and wondering the exact location, it is on the corner of 7800 S. right by the Target at Jordan Landing). I can almost taste it. I am so excited.

Farewell Summer

Last night we were out in the backyard enjoying one of the last warm summer evenings of the season. Ok, probably we will still have warm weather for another month, but I am already feeling the impending doom of a long, cold winter. Anyway, Weston wanted to play in the hose, but instead of me having to hold the sprayer while he ran through it, we hooked up the little sprinkler attachment. It turned into a cute little impromptu romp in the sprinkler.

Davin really enjoys water much more than Weston did at this age. It's fun. He is pretty brave. He got cold sooner than Weston did, but he had just as much fun.

Drying off and warming back up.

I am so enjoying our backyard. It's so nice to be able to use it. It's by no means beautiful or "done," but it's usable and we really like having that space.

We had a lovely weekend actually. Saturday morning Ian and I went to the temple and did initiatories. It was so nice. I hadn't been back to do them since I went to the temple the first time. I had forgotten so much of it. After we finished at the temple we went out to lunch at Kneaders. Mmm. We finished off our morning date with a quick stop at the Nissan dealership to get a price quote on fixing our temperature gauge.

That evening Ian went into work to put in some time on a rush project that he is doing. I curled up and watched the new Pride and Prejudice. I still prefer the A&E version, but this was shorter and I really enjoyed the more intimate ending. Although nothing really beats a wedding, right?

Sunday we all went to church. We had combined YM/YW and Davin was being a pill, so I took him out. We wandered for a few minutes then I decided to take him into nursery to play. I stayed there with him for about 20 minutes. He had a blast and screamed when I took him back to class. I don't think we will have a problem with his going to nursery in a couple weeks.

This random bath picture gets included in this post too just because it's so stinking cute. I think this was Wednesday night's bath. I just put new foam letters in the bath, and Weston spelled "toy" all by himself. He even underlined it with the "I" so that it would look like the logo of Toy Story. What a funny, smart kid. I am so excited for him to start preschool next week!
Thanks for all the book recommendations too from my last post. I have already put several on my hold list at the library. I look forward to some more good reads. In case you are wondering I am on goodreads.com, but I have a hard time keeping it updated. Finally, this weekend is the BYU football season opener. We are way excited. We will be watching the game at our house. If anyone wants to join us, let me know! Go Cougs!

The World Is New

Yesterday Weston chose Farm Country as our outing. We hadn't been since early summer, so I was excited. It was great. Not too crowded. All the garden plots were growing, so I got to point out strawberries and tomatoes in various stages of ripeness. But the biggest difference was that Davin was walking! It is seriously just a whole new world for him. He loved getting to run around and see all the exhibits inside. He had a very vocal pony ride, which I didn't get to video because I was holding him up. He had a blast petting the baby cow and playing in the jail and dance hall rooms. See Davin . . . life really is more fun when you can walk!

Davin gets very excited when he sees birds, so he enjoyed being able to see eye to eye with the ducklings. He probably scared them to death though with his banging on the window.
Cute baby cow. Cute boys.
I know this one is blurry, but he was just having SUCH a blast running in circles through the little jail. This is the only picture I got that you could see his ecstatic face (he just won't hold still).
Weston on his second pony ride. He wanted the biggest pony. :)
I have also been reading a ton this summer. It has been really fun. I was trying to remember what all I had read in the last 3 months-ish. Here's the list, as far as I can recall.

-The Book Thief (as you know, fabulous)
-The Penderwicks (wonderful, quick youth read)
-Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
-Tales of Beedle the Bard
-Goose Girl
-Enna Burning
-River Secrets (currently reading)
-The Wednesday Letters (just finished last night, it was very sweet)
-Recovering Charles (a book about a man's hunt for his estranged father in New Orleans in the days following Katrina)
-Lemon Tart (a cute little murder mystery)

At some point I would like to re-read the Twilight series before the new movie comes out. If you have any other good book recommendations please let me know. I have a couple more books on my list, but I'm really far back on the hold list at the library for them, so I need something to read in the interim.

Finally, still no word on when we will be getting the puppy. I am going to wait until after the weekend to call again since the current owners are moving this weekend and I'm sure will not have time to drive over and meet up with us. I'll keep y'all posted.

Update

Ok, so nothing really exciting has been happening. Just our normal errands, playing, cleaning, eating, kind of stuff. Oh, and obsessively checking the puppy listings on ksl.com. :) We decided to look for a dog that is needing a new home and not be so rigid about breed. I still think the toy Aussies are really really cute, but I also hear that they shed. They have longer fur. I think that would drive me nuts since I'm somewhat of a clean freak.

Anyway, I posted an wanted ad for a puppy on ksl. I got a few responses, but not any that we were really interested in. Then yesterday I saw this really cute puppy, but I assumed it would grow to be too big. I emailed the owners and it turns out that she is already a year old, so she should be full grown!


Isn't it the cutest little dog? She is a springer spaniel mixed with something. They actually don't know what else she is. I don't think she looks much like a springer spaniel either, so who knows. I think she is seriously adorable though. The current owners have only had her for 3 months and are moving this weekend and can't have her in their new place. I am excited to give her a good home. I'm not sure when we will actually be able to meet up with the owners to get her since they are moving this weekend. I hope soon. The only bummer about this puppy is that she is not completely house trained yet. So I will still have to work with her on that. Weston is excited and wants to name her Sam. I will post pics as soon as we have her.

Trees and Temples

This weekend we ended up doing an impromptu yard project. On Friday night while we were getting dinner ready (so almost 7pm) a friend of our across-the-street neighbor's knocked on the door and offered to trim our trees for really cheap since he was in need of some cash. After deciding that this was the best deal on tree trimming we had ever heard, we took him up on it. He even lowered the price a bit since Ian volunteered to help out. They didn't get started until 8pm Friday night. The guy said he would come back at 9 the next morning.

Yeah, so he didn't actually show up until about noon. Ian had called twice. Ugh. When he got there his chain saw wasn't working, so he messed with it for about an hour before deciding he needed to take it to a mechanic. We went to the pool while he took the saw to the mechanic. He didn't end up coming back to finish up until 6pm on Saturday. The saw was fixed though, so he and Ian worked until almost 10pm and finished up. It was a somewhat sketchy and frustrating business venture, but we still think getting those trees all trimmed up was worth the $300 and the full weekend we paid.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Unfortunately the $300 that we paid to get the trees trimmed was my puppy money, so now we will have to wait at least until the next paycheck to get a doggy. I am really trying to be patient, but I'm a little obsessed. I can't stop checking all the dog websites for new listings. I am still pretty set on a toy or mini Aussie though, so I hope there are some still available by next week! :)

Today we didn't have church at all because of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple dedication. We decided to go to the early 9am broadcast so that we would be done and have the rest of the day to relax, but alas, our babysitters kind of forgot, so as soon as they got here we rushed out. As we pulled into the parking lot we saw another couple in our ward jumping out of their car, but by the time we parked and tried a different door it was locked. The entire building was locked at 8:32am. It was pretty frustrating. I mean shouldn't they at least wait to lock the doors until 8:35 simply to allow for differences on watches? Lame. We decided we would just wait and go to the 3pm broadcast.

I am glad we went back. It was a very nice dedication. I hadn't been to a temple dedication since I was a teenager, and I found the whole thing more profound and inspiring than I did back then. I truly felt the spirit and left with a renewed commitment to attend the temple regularly and to make my home a more holy place.

One particular part of President Monson's talk struck me pretty hard. I apologize for my poor summary, but I don't have the actual text. He quoted the scripture about the foxes have holes and the fowls have their nests, but the savior of the world has nowhere to lay his head. Then he said (something along these lines) "in our homes where we have rooms for eating, and rooms for sleeping, and rooms for television, let us make sure we have room for Christ. And in our lives where we have time for golf, and time for movies, let us make sure we have time for Christ." What an applicable analogy. It's like my mom is always saying, if we have time to read People magazine or Real Simple, then we should surely have time to read the Ensign. I think I can make a lot of improvement in making more time for Christ and the gospel in my life and in my home.

Needless to say it was a nice Sunday. Tonight we had family game night. Ian and I whooped Weston at Zingo. In our defense he was being really silly and not paying much attention. :) Also, when we went to the distribution center to get white handkerchiefs for the dedication, the kids each got a picture (Weston's is President Monson and Davin's is Jesus). Weston decided to put Davin's on his door, then felt left out so put his on his own door. Ian commented that it appeared that we had some pretty important guests staying at our house tonight. I think it's cute and kind of funny. My favorite is that they are both the same crooked and the same Weston height.
I am looking forward to a fun playdate this week and maybe a temple trip too, depending on whether or not work calms down a bit for Ian. I'll keep you all posted on the puppy front.