A hundred times over.
The other day Lucy was beside herself at bedtime. She was in a mood where nothing could console her, wailing in her bed after I tucked her in. So I brought Bo in because I claimed “she forgot to say goodnight” and as that little puppy licked the tears right off my little girls’ cheeks and her demeanor changed right in front of me I knew:
All is right in the world with this puppy of ours.
It was all bliss until she started realizing what a great climber she is.
She’s fine in there as long as someone is right by her.
They were delighted about that. (Notice how great Lucy was doing at hers at this point…)
Here, this one the next week is a little better…
One of their “jobs” was to learn a new English word each day and teach me a Chinese one. I learned more Chinese than I did when we lived in China I tell you!
They were honestly as good as gold, and very innovative. This is what they came up all on their own when they realized they couldn’t reach the sink to brush their teeth:
The first couple nights they set up their own bed on the floor as happy as could be.
My birthday in the midst of it all:
Bo’s first shower/bath:
(…which sadly didn’t help the stink…)
My companions at my YW soccer game:
Extra companions for Grace’s lunch date:
Our great neighbor who helped get us all prepped for this puppy in the first place…
We celebrated Chinese New Year with these girls. It’s such a huge deal in China so we made it as big a deal as we could here…
…not sure if red pancakes and bacon are on the agenda for traditional New Year’s celebrations, but we made them ours:)
We took them bowling…
…and Dave started to like Bo 😉
…gradually he’s going to fall in love, I’m sure of it. Ha!
Early-morning orange picking:
…and delighted juicers:
And more puppy love:
On our last day with the girls we met up with some friends at the zoo.
It was the perfect, glorious spring day and all was right in the world.
The next day their parents arrived. We got busy and made them their own batch of orange juice to welcome them to the desert:
(along with my neighbor’s daughter and a friend in the background who brought me some birthday lunch since I was kind of home-bound…love you Gale!)
We whipped up a “welcome back” banner that they were pretty delighted to make:
Those girls were so happy to have their parents back.
Dave’s parents came to visit too…his dad fresh from Ghana and our nephew in town for wisdom teeth removal…
And with that, we wrapped it all up and bid goodbye.
…to quite an adventure.
17 comments
I'm no dog expert but we do have two dogs and they had a certain "puppy smell" I thought it kinda smelled like tuna. They grew out of it :).
IM SORRY BUT BO IS SO CUTE. AND JAIDA AND OLIVIA! DAD LOVE BO
Congrats on surviving! What a great way to remember this incredible week! You deserve a lot of extra sleep this week and a gold medal! Bo climbing that cage just made me LOL! Sounds as though that dramatic little girl is going to fit just perfectly in your family….once you can figure out how to make it work.
Those girls are soooo cute and adorable!!!
Those pictures of Bo climbing out of the playpen are adorable… and I don't event like dogs 😉
Two questions! Where is the light from over your kitchen tables? And where do you find long rolls of white paper you use for all your signs? It doesn't look as wide as normal butcher paper like from schools.
The light is from Restoration Hardware and the paper is from IKEA 🙂
Thank you!!
We got our first family dog when I was 16, and my dad was not happy about it! He He never liked dogs which is why it took forever to give the okay and let us all have one, and having a puppy going crazy in his house didn't help. But after a year or so (so yes it took a while!) he loved that dog. She recently died, and no doubt my dad was more devastated than any of us! My mom called him to let him know she had died, and left work crying because he couldn't stay there any longer! It just takes some people time to bond. 🙂
Sounds like a crazy fun time! You're a champ, Shawni!
Bless your heart! I was feeling the anxiety for you as I read, but the picture of Lucy and Bo made it all better. ❤😉❤
oh the dog smell. You'll get used to it. As long as you keep Bo clean and of course keep your house vacuumed (she doesn't shed as much as other dogs do if I remember her breed correctly) and wait it out, you won't notice anymore…. and you'll hope nobody else does too! Our dog is a black lab and she sheds pretty much all her hair every day (or so it seems) and that's a big part of the smell for me. So happy for you guys!
Believe me; we notice it even if you don't. The moment I step into a house I can tell if a dog lives there. This includes wealthy relatives that have their homes professionally cleaned.
OMG. Just because your family has become noseblind, doesn't mean everyone else who enters your home can't smell the dog stench. Trust me – they do smell it – and it is NASTY.
I don't laugh out loud at posts ever. Like ever. But seeing Bo climbing out of the baby gate about did me in. You would end up with a dramatic, climbing dog! What are the odds?? Thank you for sharing!
I have seriously been coveting your dark gray couches for a while now. Would you mind terribly sharing where you found them? Also, I'm kind of dying laughing at some of these comments about dog smell. Good thing your readers aren't forced to enter your home and smell your (adorable) pup!
That picture of bo climbing up the cage. Almost too cute to get mad at huh? SO CUTE! and I hope and am sure Dave will fall in love with her.
We find that blow drying our schnoodle on low/cool/warm after a bath makes her smell much cleaner. Also lather and rinse twice each bath. Bo is darling.