Happy New Year!

In the highly unlikely event that anyone is still actually checking on my blog: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Seriously, I don't really blame anyone for not reading my blog anymore...I mean, really--what is more boring than a blog that only gets about 2 or 3 posts a year (sorry about that!)? Ha ha!!

 Anyhow, we are no longer in Alabama (where we were living the last time I posted). We arrived in Colorado back in October after a 3 day (1,500 mile) drive. It was my first time hauling a trailer...wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. ;)

I wish I could say it was a horse trailer, but due to unfortunate circumstances (a.k.a. no longer having a horse trailer of our own, being financially strapped, and not being able to find a place to rent with a pasture that was within our budget....), we had to re-home my husband's horse before we left Alabama. That was a difficult decision to come to as Ice would have been the perfect horse for our Munchkin as he was bomb-proof and very good natured.

Anyhow...my husband and I each had to drive a vehicle and haul a trailer on our drive out here. Munchkin rode with Daddy because he thinks our truck is WAY cooler to ride in than our Jeep. No, really, ever since the first time he rode in that truck he thinks the Jeep is second rate. Such a boy! Our cat, Penny, also rode in the truck as there was more room for her in there than there was in the Jeep. That left me with Peeta. HALLELUJAH!

In case you don't realize the significance of a 3-day drive with just Peeta for company, let me just say: it was 3 days of PEACE AND QUIET!! It was almost like a mini-vacation. Sure, I was kind of sad that we weren't ALL able to ride together, but considering that was technically the first time I have EVER been away from our Munchkin for more than a few hours a few times since he was born, it was kind of nice to be able to have a bit of a break and a chance to hear myself think. :-p Plus, I was able to play a playlist of about 7 songs on repeat and listen to about 4 of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: The Chronicles of Narnia books without driving my hubby crazy or putting him to sleep. ;-p

Anyhow...we are getting settled in here in Colorado. It snowed the night we arrived and has snowed 3 more times since mid-November--which we LOVE. I have to admit though that I am homesick for my beautiful, GREEN Appalachian mountains. I am trying to be content here though as I know God has a plan for our being here currently...I just sincerely hope He has plans for us back in my beloved mountains over there on the East Coast next. ;-p

Thought I'd go ahead and share some pictures from the past couple of months....

My guys on our favorite hiking trail.

This is the BETTER side of the mountain...it's greener than the side we live on, lol.

Part of the view from the summit of our favorite hike.

A friendly Gray Jay on the trail.

A small Mule Deer buck.

View on the way back down our favorite trail on a snowy day. :)

Munchkin loves, loves, LOVES the snow!

Peeta on Christmas day. :)

Oh, so I totally forgot to continue my yearly tradition of posting pictures of Munchkin from each month and writing him a letter on his birthday.... Bummer!!! We were still in the process of unpacking and getting settled in and it totally slipped my mind. :-(
 

Why "Peeta"?

Okay, so why did we choose to name our new puppy "Peeta"? Well, there is the obvious reason that my husband and I are likely fans of the Hunger Games books--which we are...if you haven't read the books yet I highly recommend them...the writing is fantastic and the books explain a whole lot more than the movie(s). I love, love, love, LOVE the books. Anyhow, I digress....

There is another reason though...while my husband and I were trying to come up with potential names I was completely stumped--which usually doesn't happen to me, I'm usually overflowing with literary, mythological, movie, or just plain random names as possibilities for whatever creature we are trying to name. This time around though my brain just wasn't cooperating. Then I was looking at pictures of Peeta (the puppy--not the character, ha ha) and I mentioned to my husband how much he reminded me of Petie the Border Collie mix I'd grown up with....

This is Petie from 2006 I believe...he was about 14 years old in this picture. I think the similarities are in the eyes or the expression....

Petie was pretty much the best dog to ever walk the face of the earth. Okay, so *maybe* he might have some competition out there from a few other dogs, but he was always the perfect dog for my sister and myself and he set a precedent for all other dogs I've known/had that has been hard for any of them to live up to. I miss him dearly and am so grateful to have been blessed with such an incredible dog to grow up with (we found him on the side of the road when I was 4 years old...the vet said he was about 6 months old then and he lived to the ripe old age of 18).

Anyhow, that was another rabbit trail...sorry about that, ha ha.

Sooooo, I joked that we could name our new puppy Petie too (totally not serious), and that is when we thought of Peeta. :) We did decide that our 'back-up name' would be Finnick (ha ha ha ha!), but we were pretty sure it would stay Peeta, and now after having had a little over a week with Peeta to get a feel for the name, it's going to stick. It fits him and in a way it's a tribute to my beloved Petie.

So, that is how we ended up with that name...it's not because we are obsessed Hunger Games fans--there is more meaning behind it than meets the eye. ;)

Our New Furbaby....

I would have posted earlier but this past week has been a bit chaotic as we have all been adjusting to having a puppy again (aka: lack of decent sleep due to the puppy crying for varying lengths of time in his crate at night).

Anyhow.... The day we actually got him did not go as planned. He was supposed to be on a flight that left Denver, CO in the morning and would then arrive in Atlanta, GA mid-afternoon, but apparently his original flight had a gate change and he ended up being taken to the wrong gate and therefor missed the flight he was booked on. By the time we found that out though we were already close to 3 hours into our 4 hour drive to Atlanta, so after talking with his breeder we decided that the best option was to put him on the only other direct flight that was coming to Atlanta that day--which would put his arrival time at 9:00...leaving us with 7 hours to kill in the meantime.

After brainstorming for a while, my husband suggested that we could go to the aquarium in Atlanta since we hadn't ever gotten the opportunity before while we were here in Alabama for flight school. The aquarium currently has a program (for the summer I think) that sounded pretty cool with discounted tickets from 6-9pm each (?) day. That put us at the right time since we were told it would take the airline 30 minutes to an hour after his flight landed for them to unload him and have him ready for pickup.

Since we still had a few hours to pass before we could go to the aquarium we went to a health food grocery store (our first opportunity to go to this particular store since we left Hawaii as there seems to be a lack of market for anything healthy/organic down where we are...bummer). After that we walked a bit farther down the row of stores in the shopping center and stopped in at a big-name pet store...Munchkin loves to see all of the animals and fish in those stores--it's like a trip to the zoo AND the aquarium to him, ha ha.

By the time 4:30 rolled around we realized we'd been looking at the clock in our Jeep and that it was actually 5:30 since the Jeep clock has to be manually set...we started to make our way to the aquarium and the closer we got to that area the worse and worse the traffic became.

To make a long story short, apparently there was a concert taking place that night very close to where the aquarium is and there were TONS of people there for it and parking was few and far between as well as ridiculously expensive. When we were finally able to make our way to the aquarium's parking garage we saw a sign saying that the aquarium would be closing at 6pm that night. Boy was THAT disappointing, lol.

We kept waiting to see that the flight had departed Denver, but they kept getting delayed due to terrible weather that was preventing them from being able to take off. The flight finally left around 8:30pm (Mountain Time) and it arrived in Atlanta around 12:30am (EST). Thankfully, the airline people had him off the plane and ready to be picked-up in 20 minutes or less, so that made our day/night a little shorter.

Finally getting to see our new puppy for the first time in person was a pretty exciting moment! After a quick water, food, and potty break for him it was finally time to head home. We arrived home around 4:00am CST and after getting everyone settled in their beds we all hit the sack--for about 2 1/2 hours, ha ha. The hubby and I were sooooooo glad to finally lay down and close our eyes--and we were just as glad when it was time to hit the hay again the next night. :)

So, all that to say that it was quite a long, drawn-out day in getting our new furbaby, but it was worth it. :)

Now to introduce you to....

PEETA

I'll have to explain more about WHY we chose that name in a bit...ha ha.

This was taken a few minutes after we picked him up at the airport. :)

Peeta is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi...if you've ever seen a Corgi before it was likely a Pembroke Welsh Corgi--the tail-less Corgi (Pems are what the Queen's Corgis are)--as Cardis are much less common here in the U.S. Corgis are a herding breed (I've come to the realization that I love herding breeds more than any other--probably due to the fact that I grew up with a Border Collie mix and an Australian Shepherd mix....)

He's ridiculously cute. (Sorry for the low quality photo...a lot of the photos I'll be posting today are from my cell phone--it's hard to wrangle my real camera with lens and lens hood along with the Munchkin and Peeta, lol)

This was taken the morning after we got him (or maybe I should say a few hours after we got home from picking him up in Atlanta, ha ha). Not to sound like I'm gushing or anything, but I absolutely adore how thick his short little legs are--and how big his paws are--soooooo cute.

He thinks he's dying of heat stroke if he's outside for even just a couple of minutes and it's very common for him to flop down like this on any cool surface he can find.

This picture makes me smile. Munchkin LOVES Peeta.

The treat ball Munchkin is holding is AWESOME. More about that later....

Snuggling.

Originally Munchkin had Peeta 'tucked in' under the blanket--he said Peeta would get cold because the fan was on. Then Munckin wanted me to read Peeta a Winnie-the-Pooh story.... :)

We were hanging out in the garage while the Munchkin and my hubby washed the cars. Peeta is wet in this picture because the Munchkin has just sprayed us lightly with the hose, ha ha.

He totally thought he was going to die from the heat. The fan was his best friend.

You can see his brindle coloration pretty well in this picture....

Buddies
(please excuse the mess...we are still in the process of remodeling and sometimes we run out of space to 'shift' things to).

I guess he thinks his 'toy box' is a super snug bed. ;)

He loves to sleep like this.

And this...I call this the road kill crash position, ha ha.

And this too apparently. LOL!

Soooooo, that's our new baby. :) I'll tell you more about why we chose his name later....

I'm back.... *maybe*

Soooooo, long time no write...not that I was doing very well at actually posting on a regular basis during the past two years anyhow, ha ha. I've been trying to decide whether or not I am going to keep this blog and try to start posting again--or if I'm going to delete it. I still haven't decided either way just yet, so in the meantime I'm going to do a trial run of getting back into blogging again.

The Munchkin and I moved back to Hawaii at the end of November last year--with the help of my mom, thanks Mom! :) The month of December DRAGGED by for me--as I'm sure it did for all of the other deployed soldiers' wives. ;) But, finally, on December 30th my hubby came home safe and sound. HURRAY!!! It has been wonderful having my best friend home again--and nice to not have to snuggle with a body pillow every night while I am sleeping anymore, ha ha. :)

We hosted a belated Christmas dinner at our house for a lot of the single soldiers in our company (as well as a couple of married couples :) towards the end of January. So. Much. Food. I think I made over 300-400 cookies in the week leading up to the dinner. I kept finding new recipes I wanted to try and figured it was the perfect opportunity to do so. ;-p Not to mention all of the REAL food we made as well. Let me tell you...it was super yummy--and everyone enjoyed it, so it was a success. Going into it we wanted it to be a blessing to everyone who came, and I think it was as one of the single soldiers commented on how it felt like it was a real family gathering. I hope seeds were planted that will grow and bear fruit at some point.... Can't wait to do that again with the single guys at our next duty station after we get established there.

Speaking of which...I can't remember if I've already posted about where we are going next or not, but just in case I haven't...we will be heading to Fort Carson in Colorado towards the end of October! We can't wait to have a snowy winter this year. I keep wishing it was fall already, ha ha.

In the meantime...we have already PCS'd (Permanent Change of Station) away from Hawaii. Man, was that bittersweet! We were ready to leave--having been there so long and not really being the island/beach/city kind of people, but after you live somewhere for a while it becomes a part of you and you have memories associated with things and places there. Letting go and saying goodbye--not to mention saying goodbye to the people you've come to care for there!--can be challenging. We did our best to wrap up our time on the island by visiting all of our favorite spots (like Turtle Bay resort--where we spent our honeymoon)...and eating our favorite local foods one last time. I am grateful we took the time to do those things as I truly think it has helped with the transition back to the Mainland (we experienced some culture shock immediately after arriving back on Mainland U.S. soil and for the following 24 hours at least--it was a very odd feeling while it lasted).

So, anyhow, that was back in May. After a bunch of driving here, there, and everywhere (or so it seemed, ha ha) during the first week and a half of being back on the Mainland, we ended up back in Alabama--in our own house. My hubby has a course to do here at Fort Rucker before we head to Colorado, so here we are. :) It was nice to be able to come back to a familiar house--though we've had to make quite a few updates/repairs since we've been here--thanks Dad for coming and helping us with those after the hubby started his courses!!!! Hopefully we'll be able to finish those up soon and get the house back on the market--and then *hopefully* sold.

Oh, one other bit of news...we are getting a puppy! Hopefully we will be getting him sometime this next weekend or the week after--we are still working on the details currently. We are super excited and can't wait for him to arrive as we have missed having a dog something fierce! It came down to us realizing that we were going to HAVE to get our next dog as a puppy in order to make sure it is socialized with all of the animals and situations we need it to be able to handle without aggression...I can't lose another dog after getting attached due to it not being compatible again for one reason or another.... I'll post pictures of our new little fella soon. ;)

So, that's what has been happening in our lives lately. We'll see how this 'experiment' with blogging again goes.... I can't make any promises at this point though. I'll just have to take this one post at a time. :)

Penny--Then & Now

I was looking through some of the first pictures I have of Penny-Cat, and decided I would share a quick before and after of her. She didn't turn out anything like we thought she would when we first took her in as a 'foster'--though the lady who asked us to foster her apparently really had no intentions of it being a foster, but more of a free kitten kind of thing. Ah, well, we love our Penny girl, so it all worked out okay.

Anyhow, here are her before and after shots. =)

This was taken within a couple days of our getting her. . .she was about 8 weeks old here.

This was taken back in February. See how much she's changed? Ha ha! Sadly, I don't have any recent full-body shots of her to show how dark and tabby-ish she is on her back and tail. . . .

By the way, apparently my previous post was my 100th post! Craziness!

Introducing Sasha

Handsome (albeit somewhat dirty, ha ha) boy.

 So, I know what those of you that have been following my blog for the past couple of years may be thinking. . ."What--ANOTHER dog?!"

Big stretch!

Well, in our defense, it's been really HARD finding the right dog.

Apparently someone else likes to eat snow too. =p

 Though I'm still not 100% sure that Sasha is that dog, I'm giving him a chance to become that dog (he needs training and a LOT of patience).

I LOVE the background in these next couple of shots!

 We got him from a German Shepherd Rescue--yep, you read that right: he's a White German Shepherd Dog--back in early December.

The snow on his nose makes me smile. =)

 He came from a home in Tennessee that couldn't keep him anymore. We were told that he is a little over 1 1/2 years old (so he's still got a puppy mentality in a lot of aspects).

He was having a blast in the snow.

 He is a little too curious/hyper about the cats at the moment so I can't let him free roam the house now that the cats are out and about. That is one 'issue' we are going to have to work on. . .it's just hard to do it without my hubby here to help.

Ready to spring again. =)

 Oh, and he jumps the fence (and then runs for the hills, ha ha)--hence the reason why he is tied out in the yard. I am going to get an invisible fence for him so we don't have to have him tied whenever he is outside.

I was happy he liked the snow as much as the rest of us do--at least in that aspect he fits right in!

He had really bad separation anxiety when we first got him and would destroy stuff if left alone for (literally) even a minute. We got a crate and crate trained him so he wouldn't be alone unsupervised if we had to leave the house or if he had to be in a different room for a while. At first he didn't like the crate (I can't say I blame him since it was entirely new to him) but now he chooses to go in there quite often. It really has become his 'den/safe spot'.  =)

I thought this one's perspective was kind of funny.

So, even though he can be really frustrating a lot of times, he seems to fit in somehow and I think with some training coupled with a lot of dedication and patience, he just might be the right dog.

Not a Monday, but Still Miscellaneous!

So, I just realized that I haven't met my original goal of getting back into posting at least once a week, because it has already been a month since I posted last! Where does the time go? o.O


Anyhow...I'm way past due for posting an update! So much has happened this past month--and I really meant to blog about the events as they were happening, because I didn't want to forget any of them (which I'm quite certain that I have indeed forgotten something that I wanted to blog about). As you can tell though--it didn't happen!


Now to at least *try* to get caught up. Where to begin? .... Ah, I know: my sister. :-)

First some background; for years my sister has felt a calling to be a missionary--and more specifically--to go to India and use her life for God's glory working with the orphans and widows of India. So, last year after being disappointed by a door being closed at the last minute for her to go to Honduras for 6 months and assist a missionary couple who were already there, my sister was networking with native Indian missionaries to try to make some contacts and see if any doors would open. She began communicating with a man named Byju who runs an orphanage in Northern India. As they talked they began to realize that they had many of the same dreams and goals for what they felt like God was calling them to do with their lives. Byju asked my sister if she would think about marrying him, and after a while they began a courtship and--to make a long story short--earlier this month my sister traveled to India (along with our mom) to meet and marry her Byju. :-) They were married on July 10th and judging from the brief phone calls and Facebook statuses, my sister is blissfully happy and completely adores her new husband (but that's nothing new is it Sis? :-p). ;-)

 My beautiful sister and her dashing new husband on their wedding day!

If you ever read this Sis--congratulations again! We are so happy for you and Byju and can't wait to meet him (hopefully sooner rather than later)! Love you bunches! :-)

Well, in other news, Peanut Butter Cup has been cutting his canines (so far the lower left and upper right ones have broken through, but the other two are still below the surface) which that has been making him cranky, and is likely also responsible for his somewhat diminished appetite as well. We have been working on potty training (very slowly) since May, and have had some progress but still have a LONG way to go.... A very long way to go. o.O

My horse, Titan, is *possibly* going to be broken soon! I am SO excited about that, but am so sad to be missing all of his training. I'm hoping to find out an approximate date of when it is going to happen--before it happens (even if it gets changed and has to be delayed for any reason)--so that I can share in the excitement and anticipation of waiting for an e-mail or something to hear how it went. Silly, I know, but I feel like I'm missing so much with him and it would be so awesome to be able to feel more a part of such a big event in his life! Phooey--I miss my pony!!

My handsome boy! (Thanks to Karissa, one of my best and dearest friends, for taking this photo and sharing it with me! You're awesome!!!)

Well, I guess I should try to get some other stuff done before Peanut Butter Cup wakes up for the day. :-) I really will try to write again soon--and post more pictures! I'm so far behind....

I'm Alive Still . . . No Worries! :-)

Whew, I have been SO awful about updating the blog lately -- as I'm sure y'all have noticed! SORRY!!

What with Peanut Butter Cup being so mobile now along with my trying to get settled back into some sort of a routine after my hubby returned to work, I haven't had much extra time or energy to sit down and write an update . . . plus everytime I would contemplate doing so, I would quickly become overwhelmed at all of the things that have happened since my last update that I've been wanting to write about. So, I guess in the interest of maintaining my sanity, and not boring you to death with an extraordinarily long post, I will either just skip a few things altogether, or break them up into individual posts (as I have time). I haven't entirely decided which I will do yet, but extra time seems to be one thing I've been lacking lately, so it is somewhat probable that I may skip over a few things.

*Side note* Please pray for all of us as we seem to be coming down with some sort of a cold/flu. Peanut Butter Cup started showing some symptoms the night before last, then last night I started to get it, and now my hubby is getting it as well! :-(

Okay, back to the post!

As those of your who are friends with me on Facebook may already know (due to the pictures my husband posted), we have a new family member: her name is Abby, she just turned a year old on January 1st and weighs about 140 pounds.

We came across an ad for her back in December, went and visited her a couple of times, thought and prayed hard about her, weighed the options carefully, and in the end we decided to bring her home. Peanut Butter Cup adores her (though that may not come as a huge surprise since he loves dogs in general) and he loves to give her hugs. She is so sweet, gentle, and calm . . . she usually just lays there while Peanut Butter Cup tries to give her a hug while laying/leaning on her (don't worry I keep an eye on them to make sure Abby hasn't accidentally sat on Peanut Butter Cup!). The other day Abby was laying near the front door while Peanut Butter Cup and I were in the kitchen/living room area . . . Peanut Butter Cup disappeared down the hallway and it suddenly became very quiet and still, so I peeked around the corner to see what they were doing. Peanut Butter Cup was sitting on Abby's back, just behind her shoulders, facing her rear, and Abby was just laying there! Ha ha ha! A few seconds later Peanut Butter Cup lost his balance and slid off, and I went down the hall to get him so he wouldn't do that again (we don't want him to hurt Abby's back -- she's already likely to have some other health issues down the road without adding that one to it, but that's another post in and of itself!). He looked so proud of himself! :-)

*************

On another subject, my hubby has started playing around with Photoshop (the above picture of Abby being one of his edits), and in my opinion he is pretty good (he's a lot braver than I have been with experimenting with all the different actions and tools!). He also has a pretty good eye for photography as well (same as with Photoshop, he's more brave about experimenting--but that is probably a good thing because then he inspires me to try new things as well).

Here are some of his first Photoshop edits with a mixture of our photos . . . we are always taking turns with the camera so sometimes it gets confusing to remember who took what photo when looking at them out of context--though these particular photos should be pretty obvious. ;-)

 We couldn't decide which edit we liked best on these two photos, so he did it both ways. :-)

Anyhow, I think he's awesome (both as a husband AND as an amateur, hobbyist photographer), so I wanted to share his talent with you. :-)