Whew! What a Week!!! (With a shocking twist!)
I can't believe tomorrow it has been a week since all of the true craziness began to happen. We have arrived in Oklahoma and are loving our new house. It's beautiful, spacious, and ours. What else could we ask for?
I want to start with something that pulls at my heart strings. I took these pictures on Sunday last week not knowing they would be the last ones I took of Grace. I'm bummed that I'm not with her in any of them, but I guess that's what happens when you're the main photographer of the family and you don't realize you may not have another opportunity. Anyway...here is Grace with her family. These include the first and only pictures of Grace with Lorelai I believe.
Now I realize I already posted about Grace's farewell. But, in a few days I want to post a little remembrance post about her so you can see how far she came in her 7 years with us. :) As you can see...she was very much loved to the end.
After saying our goodbyes to Grace and our Texas home we hit the road. We spent our first night in Houston with Grandma Cherlyn and Grandpa Greg. Then we headed up to Dallas to visit Matt and family. Including our new niece, Caroline! :) Yay! I forgot to snap a picture of her because all four of us had colds so I was trying to keep my distance. Hopefully no one there got sick! Caroline was only a week old on the day of our arrival. So tiny! I couldn't believe that Lorelai was even smaller than she was. WOW!!!! Our little miss 75% in height and weight now.
We're all making ourselves at home. But, we wouldn't be us if we didn't do something a little crazy, right? Well, as soon as we walked in to the house I mentioned how lonely it seemed without Grace, and that a house just wasn't a home without a dog. Gabriel really seemed to miss Grace, and he had such a great time with his cousin dog, Charlie. I had been looking online at local rescue groups and shelters. And while running an errand at Lowes I mentioned to Brian that I would like to take a look at a certain dog at the Animal Shelter. Well, we stopped off at Petco for directions. He asked me, "You know if we go there we're coming home with a dog right?" I smiled and replied, "Yes!"
Enter, Paisley!
That's right. We are the proud new owners of a fabulous 1 year old Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. She is very sweet, loves to herd and kiss on the kids. She doesn't quite understand the difference between her toys and the kid's toys yet. Sadly we've had to say goodbye to a couple of toys in the last day. But, the chaos is getting cleared up so hopefully that is less and less.
With that said...she knew instantly we were her family and treats anyone she doesn't know as a definite outsider. She has a very loud and deep bark that certainly keeps visitors on their toes. But, don't worry. She's an old softie. :) She just wants to make sure you won't hurt the kids. She's a big fan of them:
For those of you who are curious she is just shy of 70 lbs. But her head is level with the dining table. So she can pretty much inhale things off of your plate if you're not paying attention, and she doesn't even have to jump up on the table to get it. She can pretty much walk right onto the couch...which is making it hard to explain to her that they are not her personal lounge chairs. lol Don't worry...new beds have been ordered for her today. We're also working on healing on walks, but she made great progress on that today. So, while she has her faults, and may not be currently living up to the saintliness of Grace...we'll get her there. She's only a year old for goodness sakes. She's still a puppy. :) A goofy clumsy fabulous puppy.
Is it too soon? Nah. I thought it would be, but everyone I've encountered reminds me of how lucky Grace was to have us (and I inwardly remind myself of how lucky we were to have her). And I just feel that if everyone is saying that to me...maybe God and Grace are trying to tell me that just because she has gone on to a better place doesn't mean we need to stop helping dogs here who are in need. I think Grace is smiling down at us. Happy that we will have someone to take her place to watch over us all in her absence. And Paisley is certainly doing a good job of that. She can't rest if everyone is in different rooms. It's the Shepherd in her.
She's not a replacement. She's an addition. And we LOVE her! :) Wouldn't you?!
And you can't resist the smooches. She kisses the kids all over and they laugh and laugh. I could go on and on with super sweet stories just from the first day alone, but I'll stop gushing to bring you some of this messy cuteness as a close to what has become a long rambling post:
I want to start with something that pulls at my heart strings. I took these pictures on Sunday last week not knowing they would be the last ones I took of Grace. I'm bummed that I'm not with her in any of them, but I guess that's what happens when you're the main photographer of the family and you don't realize you may not have another opportunity. Anyway...here is Grace with her family. These include the first and only pictures of Grace with Lorelai I believe.
Now I realize I already posted about Grace's farewell. But, in a few days I want to post a little remembrance post about her so you can see how far she came in her 7 years with us. :) As you can see...she was very much loved to the end.
After saying our goodbyes to Grace and our Texas home we hit the road. We spent our first night in Houston with Grandma Cherlyn and Grandpa Greg. Then we headed up to Dallas to visit Matt and family. Including our new niece, Caroline! :) Yay! I forgot to snap a picture of her because all four of us had colds so I was trying to keep my distance. Hopefully no one there got sick! Caroline was only a week old on the day of our arrival. So tiny! I couldn't believe that Lorelai was even smaller than she was. WOW!!!! Our little miss 75% in height and weight now.
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| The boys just hanging out on the stairs. |
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| Aunt Angie was so sweet helping Gabriel find matching puzzle pieces. |
We spent a little of Wednesday with them as well before saying our goodbyes. Barrett would only let us say goodbye to him with his Bob the Builder belt on, and we had to call him Bob the Builder. :) We were also very grateful to Matt for coming home on his lunch break so we could visit with him a bit more as well.
We journeyed up to Oklahoma. And I have to pause to say that my kids were amazing at the hotels this time around. We did get two separate rooms. One adult per child. Lorelai still wakes at night so that was a no go for sharing rooms. On Wednesday evening we got the keys to our house, went over to drop some stuff off before heading back to the hotel and promptly set off our alarm. Welcome home! lol We didn't have the passcode so that was a bit hectic for a little while. But, Thursday our fridge and our other belongings arrived and here we are! Unpacking. And unpacking. And did I mention unpacking?
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| Tiny baby in a very large living room. :) |
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| Dad - You were wondering what the "Dining Room" ceiling looked like when I mentioned it was kind of like textured leather. Here it is. |
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| Gabriel likes to hang out in the windows. |
Enter, Paisley!
With that said...she knew instantly we were her family and treats anyone she doesn't know as a definite outsider. She has a very loud and deep bark that certainly keeps visitors on their toes. But, don't worry. She's an old softie. :) She just wants to make sure you won't hurt the kids. She's a big fan of them:
Is it too soon? Nah. I thought it would be, but everyone I've encountered reminds me of how lucky Grace was to have us (and I inwardly remind myself of how lucky we were to have her). And I just feel that if everyone is saying that to me...maybe God and Grace are trying to tell me that just because she has gone on to a better place doesn't mean we need to stop helping dogs here who are in need. I think Grace is smiling down at us. Happy that we will have someone to take her place to watch over us all in her absence. And Paisley is certainly doing a good job of that. She can't rest if everyone is in different rooms. It's the Shepherd in her.
She's not a replacement. She's an addition. And we LOVE her! :) Wouldn't you?!
