'Tis The Season!!!

It was Satori's first Christmas!!!

We celebrated Christmas in Omaha again this year. The drive out was long. The girls did really well and pretty much slept most of the trip.

We left early Christmas Eve day, and headed straight to Plattsmouth to pick up the puppy, then headed to Omaha to celebrate the holiday with Chad's family.

We met the puppy and immediately fell in love with him. We signed paperwork for him and welcomed him to our family. He did really well in the van on the way to Chad's mom's house. Sake was a little leery of him at first, we think she was getting used to being an only dog, but she warmed up to him by the end of the night.

Kimiko gave us a hard time Christmas Eve with going to sleep. We understood that she had slept most of the day in the van from the 8+ hour drive, but the fit she was throwing was the most intense either of us had ever witnessed. The long drive, the messed up schedule, and the strange place was too much for her to handle. She was screaming so much she woke Chad's mom up at 2am! Finally, PJ asked her if she brushed her teeth. The crying stopped, Miko got up and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she curled up and went to sleep while PJ sang to her and Tori. It was probably one of the longest nights of our lives.

Christmas morning, Miko was excited to open presents, but she had to wait for Crystal to get home. Miko kept walking up to the tree and eyeballing the gifts, just knowing all of them were for her, only to be told not to touch them. PJ finally relented and let her have a recorder that was in her stocking. It didn't take her long to figure out how to blow that thing to make a lot of noise! Finally, Aunt Crystal and Matt showed up and presents were opened! Miko made out with all the gifts she received!

 

 

 

 

Tori pretty much slept her entire first Christmas away. Ha ha!

 The new pup fit right in with Sake and Wrigley. They spent a lot of time outside. We found out the puppy is not house broken at all. He didn't want to go down the steps on the back deck, and wouldn't go to the bathroom when Chad took him out on a leash, but would pee like crazy as soon as he came back inside. But, on a positive, we found out he loves laser pointers! Ha ha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that afternoon, we headed over to Uncle Alan and Aunt Jenna's where we met up with Matt, Meghan and Shawn. We had a really nice dinner and a wonderful time! We even got to Skype with Aunt Christine, Brown, Molly, Bridget, Jack, and Brady. We brought the puppy with us since we didn't know how he would act staying alone, and he fell in love with Tucker and Sammie, Aunt Jenna and Uncle Alan's pups. We had so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back to Chad's mom's, we enjoyed a fire, then headed off to bed. Everyone was tired that night, and there was no problems with going to sleep!

 

 

The day after Christmas we spent just relaxing. Dara came for a visit as well as Chad's mom's neighbors Chris and Brenda. Crystal's longtime friends Patty and Maggie also came for a visit. After all the visiting, we Skyped with Uncle Gary!

 

 

On Monday, we left right around noon. Crystal and Matt left before us. The drive home was nice and fun. PJ also went a little wild with the camera...

Typical Miko tantrum

Saying goodbye

Pups were tired

Miko was tired as well

She did wake up later to call someone on her cell phone (an old one that became her toy)

The pups were happy in their seat

Soon the pup moved to the floor

The trip home was pretty good. The whole family was there:

Miko...

...Tori...

...Sake...

...The puppy...

...Chad...

...and, Soul-alicious (aka Benny)!!!

Yeah, PJ went a little crazy and had some fun with the camera! Ha ha!

We discussed names for the puppy (neither one of us like James Bond enough to name anyone after him) during the drive and settled on the name Wrangler. We wanted to try to stick with a cowboy-ish/western type of name, and threw around the names Cowboy, Stetson, Rustler, and Wrangler. We both liked Wrangler. Plus, since it means "to herd livestock," it seemed fitting since that's what Corgis are bred to do.

So, everyone! Meet Wrangler:

When we returned home, we walked in to find there was barely enough water in the fish tank covering the fish and frog. We immediately put them in the travel tank we use when we clean the tank. Thankfully, we got home when we did, or we may have had a couple more losses in 2010.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Our was adventurous, just like our lives.

Santa and the Girls!

The girls went to see Santa...or as Miko calls him: "Ho Ho Ho!"

They did really good. Miko was smiling and yelling "Cheese," but she was facing Santa the entire time she did that. As soon as she turned toward the camera, she refused to smile. Tori just sat there squirming a little bit. We stood behind the camera making fools of ourselves trying to get the perfect picture. Ha ha! Better luck next year!

Pictures To Tell The Tale (very pic heavy)

Just wanted to post some pictures of the girls and things that have been happening here. We haven't really had time to post the blog as much as we'd like...we're hoping that after the holidays things will slow down a bit again and we can get to it. Ha ha!

Satori in Kimiko's old sling

Miko wasn't feeling too good and passed out while playing

Poor thing

She wasn't too happy

Our fat-girl Harlot

Fancy playing with a catnip ball

It's snowing out there!!!

So of course she wants to go outside!

Sisters!

Geek-in-training

Mommy's glasses

Tori in her Bumbo

What are you looking at?!?!

Is there a cat on my head?

Our cuties!

Our deaf old lady - Eros

She was showing us her nose

Mommy with her baby!

Super-Geek!!!

She really doesn't like pacifiers...it takes a few minutes to get her to actually suck on one.

Sleeping in her sling

Swim lessons! She is addicted to water now!

In her swing!

Love!

Miko showing Tori her toes

One of our faves...her hair makes us laugh!

Our little artist

Our little singer/dancer

Sake on our new chair

It's the perfect size for her...she claimed it!

We were trying to capture her smile...no luck

Typical day during what's supposed to be Tori's tummy-time!

Daddy and his girls

Perfection!!!

Just hanging out

The total lunar eclipse on winter solstice - 12/21

Sake being Sake

Miko tried to calm Tori with ducks, then picked up the phone to call for back up!

Our baby!

The "Bond" Between Humans and Pets...

Well, we may be getting a new furkid...what else is new, huh? Ha ha! Anyone who knows us knows that our home will probably always be filled with furkids!

PJ had been looking for a Corgi pup even before we lost Rodeo. The reason for that was because we knew Rodeo was 10 years old already, and while that isn't that old in a Corgi, we knew how attached Sake was to Rodeo, so we wanted a furkid in place for when "that time came." Little did we know "that time" came a lot sooner than anyone could have predicted. We thought we would wait a year before getting another Corgi, just to give ourselves time to mourn Rodeo, and to get to the point where Tori's not needing as much one on one attention (meaning that she's a little more mobile on her own and not needing to be attached to PJ all day long), but there was an emptiness that we had to fill!

Anyway, she was looking on Craigslist, but was deterred because a lot of the postings sounded like they were from backyard breeders, which we are very much against, and would never support them. We thought about going back through the breeder PJ adopted Rodeo from, but she's in Tennesee, plus a little bit of research showed that bloat can be a hereditary thing, so we didn't want to chance having to go through that again. So, she went on petfinder.com to look at Corgis available through rescue groups. Well, she found one.

His name: Bond. James Bond. Ha ha! He is the cutest thing...although, not as cute as Rodeo, but pretty darned close! When PJ saw him online, she just felt that it was right. The only problem: he was in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Not a problem as far as picking him up since Chad's mom lives in Omaha, and Council Bluffs is only about 10-15 minutes from there (and we're planning to be there for Christmas already). But the problem was that it said in his little bio that a home visit was necessary. PJ told Chad about him and showed him the pup's picture, and to her surprise he encouraged her to fill out the application. We both came to the conclusion that the chances of us getting this cute boy were very slim, but we decided to "aim high" and if it was meant to be, it would happen. So, PJ filled out the application, giving as much information as possible, and probably mentioned Rodeo a little too much, and sent it off to the email provided.

To our surprise, the very next day, there was an email from Deb saying that we sounded perfect! Wow! We were shocked, excited, and emotional all at the same time. The rescue organization (The Midwest Dog Rescue Network) actually had someone (Barb) in Berthoud (30 minutes from us) that could come and do a home visit that weekend!!! Well, our home is already baby-proof, so being puppy-proof shouldn't be all that hard. Neither one of us had ever been through this before, so we didn't know what to expect.

After talking to both Deb and Barb on the phone, we set up the home visit for Sunday since Chad had to work that Saturday. Barb was very nice...she's a Corgi owner/lover as well. She had a questionnaire that she had to fill out and walked around to look at the house and the backyard. She said that if we didn't get the puppy, then she wanted him. After she left, we didn't know what to think. We kind of thought that everything went great, but we still didn't want to get our hopes up.

The day after the home visit, PJ emailed Deb to find out what the next step was, if any. Deb emailed back and said that everything sounded great, so the next step was meeting and taking the pup home. We also found out the pup was not in Council Bluffs at all, but in Plattsmouth, Nebraska...about 30 minutes away from Omaha. To us, not a problem!

We have a date set up for Christmas Eve! It's gonna be our gift to each other! We are sooo excited to have a new member in our family! Hopefully everything will go great!