We Survived the Puppies

Megan is our animal lover. All of our kids like dogs and animals. But Megan is the one who will sit and hold them if she can for hours. We watched Grandma and Grandpa Moore's puppies for 4 days while they left for Jackson Hole. We were excited to have the experience of dogs in our house again (as we did for Kyle and Lindsay's pugs). We didn't see many allergic reactions to the puppies this time around.

Megan loves to sit and hold little Argie, but he will always try to lick you when you pick him up. He isn't very cuddly. Since getting his hair cut a while ago, he is really looking like a Scottie. His ears are starting to stick up too.

Paisley is much better about letting you hold her. She is starting to look like a Scottie, but is still a little scruffy looking.

Both puppies are very playful and cute. They loved playing fetch with the balls and digging in the gravel pit. They do fight a lot (but I think it is just rough play). Each morning after going potty, they would rough house in their play yard and make lots of noise in the process. After a few hours of play they would both collapse and rest for a few hours in the early afternoon. By about 2:00 they were ready for some more play.

Since they are still working on potty training, we had them stay in an enclosed area of our kitchen when they were inside. To try to minimize the poop clean up and garden destruction we also had a big play yard for them to be in when they were outside by themselves. We would let them run free when one of the kids or I were with them outside. They did get plenty of attention during the 4 days we had them. We tried to take them on a walk around the neighborhood, but we ended up carrying Paisley most of the way. I took the dogs to the bus stop on Monday and the kids enjoyed having that special greeting as they got off the bus.

It was a fun adventure. But Ryan and I were glad to take the puppies back home at the end. If we do get a puppy it will just be one. And neither of us are in a hurry to get one.

Camping in September

I know it is October and I haven't done very good at updating our blog. We have been busy trying to work out our routine for the school year, and well life can just be busy sometimes. We have tried to go camping each year with the kids. This year we squeezed our camping trip in during the middle of September. I would have prefered doing it in the summer, but at least we went. We got a new big tent a few years ago - when Caleb was a little baby. This is the third time we have used it.

We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon on Friday afternoon (the 12th of Sept right after school) and the kids and I started to set up camp. Collin, Megan and I got the tent up most of the way. When Ryan arrived later (after work), he had to do the last few poles. Ryan's mom and dad came up as well, but just for a quick dinner and roasting marshmallows. (or Smarshmallows as Caleb calls them). Ryan's mom always liked to make french dip sandwiches when they would go camping as a family. So we love it when she offers to make the dinner for us.

It was a cold evening, so Grandma and Grandpa didn't stay for too long. We tried to enjoy our camp fire as long as the kids would let us. But after about a half hour of begging to go to bed and get warm in their sleeping bags, we finally gave in to them. Of course in the middle of the night we had to make one potty run for caleb, and he made it without any problems.

Ryan and Collin got up early (at about 6am) to go fising near by. Unfortunately they didn't catch anything. I guess they enjoyed trying. Megan, Caleb and I just stayed snuggled in our sleeping bags until the sun came up and we had to get to the bathroom. It was so cold that we found it helpful to put our fresh clothes in our sleeping bags with us for a few minutes to warm them up before getting dressed.

We had egg mcMuffin sandwiches for breakfast (one of Ryan's specialities that he would do on his many scouting camp outs a few years ago when he was the scout master). We broke camp and were home around 1PM. It was a quick trip and tiring. But we hope the kids enjoyed going.