New Words!

James has started to increase his vocabulary! Over the past three or four days, he has added two new words. A few nights ago, he said, "Happy". Last night, he started saying "kee-kee", for kitty. It is so funny to hear him talking. He's been such a quiet guy for so long... and, now he's starting to find his inner voice.

I talked to Dr. Sampson yesterday afternoon. We now have an action plan for getting Shasta to like her crate. I knew thta Dr. Sampson would provide much insight and great details to what we needed to do. I always enjoy talking to him... perhaps it is as much therapy for me as it is for our pets. Anyway, the first two steps are... 1. Wear her out. We need to take her on two 30-40 minute walks each day. Doug will do one before work... I will do one after he gets home. Exercise for us, too! 2. We need to put her in her crate at night and let her cry it out. No talking to her... no soothing her... nothing. We don't do good with tough love on our kids, so this should be rough on us. But, I think that we can get through it.

We are looking forward to this weekend. We really need to finish "winterizing" our yard. I need to plant our garlic and a few tulip bulbs... we need to take the dining tent down... put the table and chairs and hammock in the barn. It should be fun.

I just caught a segment on the morning news about a place in a nearby town that serves "fair food" year-round. Yummy!! Elephant ears, taco in a bag, cotton candy, tenderloins. Ooh. A great idea!

From Tiny Acorns...

... grow mighty Oaks! Well, last night I had a LONG overdue night out with the "girls". One of our neighbors invited me to go along with her to a local antique store, Acorn Farm. They were having a series of seminars on Fall/Christmas table decorating. I am so inspired! The gal that lead the seminar used to work for Williams-Sonoma... also, I think that she had been a teacher. Anyway, the table settings were out of this world! All of the things that she used, she had gathered from the antique store. She also handed out recipes that would be great to have during the holiday season. I also really enjoyed my visit with Bonnie. It was so nice to have adult mom-to-mom conversation...

On an unrelated note, we think that Shasta suffers from separation anxiety. She has not been doing well when we leave her in her crate. We are doing some research now to see how to work through this... it appears that this is a very common thing. It really makes sense that she would have some issues like this given her recent history. Doug thinks that maybe her first owners crated her during the day... and at night. We will never know. And, we always have Dr. Sampson in our back pocket. He is AMAZING... pricey, but good. I still am in awe that he helped Oscar through his bathroom issues.

The kids and I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday to take care of our crafting needs. We got a few things to paint. We also got some fake pumpkins and gourds, along with a cornucopia. I have been wanting to do something with some Indian corn from the neighbor boy a few weeks ago. So, the cornucopia is a perfect place for it. Looks great! (and that was even before I was inspired by the table lady!) I also splurged and let Amanda and James get some Christmas ornaments for their trees. They both opted for the purple set... they'll look great. I am so excited for the holidays to come... not so excited about the stress of shopping. But, I'm very excited to decorate and see family! Ho! Ho! Ho!!

First Cache

This weekend was just gorgeous here! The fall colors are certainly at their peak. We enjoyed lots of outside time... some play, some work. We were able to take Shasta to a local park for a walk, and as it turns out, her first cache with the KuhlKachers team. We all had a great time. The only problem was that James was a bit overdue for his nap. Needless to say, we didn't get to hit as many caches as we had planned.

The beauty of Fall:


The KuhlKachers with their newest member:




We also "officially" adopted Shasta yesterday. We had to go over to the "Pyr House" and sign some papers. We also got a lot of great information about grooming. We wound up coming home with our very own Furminator. Those things work like magic! And, the bonus is that they work great on the cats, too.

Mom is suffering from Shingles right now. It is no fun at all. My manager at my previous job suffered through that, and I remember him saying how painful it was. It surely must have been, because Mark was not a person to complain or say anything negative at all. I'm hoping that she has a quick recovery from it... say a prayer for her.

The kids and I are going to try swimming lessons solo today. We are doing our first of two makeup classes from when we were on vacation. It should go ok... James and I have our class first. Amanda's class is right after James'. That should give James and I a chance to change out of our wet stuff and be ready to get Amanda by the time she is done.

Introducing...

the newest member of our family! Miss Shasta!



We got her Wednesday afternoon... and, everything so far is going well. We had a couple of little accidents, but we seem to be over that for now. Shasta is used to going outside on her own to do her business. Since our fence isn't quite done (they are finishing it as I type!!), we have had to take her out on a leash. Some dogs are shy about this, especially if they have been used to going by themselves.

We did take her on her first outing with us last night. We went over to the house of the folks who run the Pyr rescue. They had 12 dogs there!!! It was unreal. They also have three cats... Anyway, after that we went to PetSmart. Doug was like a proud papa parading her around. Very sweet. She did great with all of the other dogs and people that she met.

Here are a few pictures of her first evening with us.