And Puppy Makes Seven!

Yup. I consider my husband to be very predictable. Very. I need to talk about things about 6 months before I really want them to prepare him for change. Five years ago I know I could not share a home with a puppy and baby again. Since my babies are not babies anymore, I started opening my heart a little bit to the possibility of a dog in our home again. About a month ago we spontaneously led my family into the pet store (you should never go in there with kids unless you are actually ready for pet ownership...EVERYONE wants a dog after a visit to the petstore!). We brought two "Zuchons" into a room with our family to play (A Zuchon is a mix between Bichon Friese and Shih-tzu). The kids loved them. Of course. I've seen Ben and Mary go from crazed, dog fearing children to actually pet the neighbor dog across the street. After that experience, Ted said he might be ready for a dog again...maybe after my trip to Australia. I left it at that.

Then, we went to our babysitter's house for her graduation party two weeks ago. Our babysitter is also family... her dad is Ted's cousin. Anyway, they own two Shih-tzus. They told me her grandma breeds them! Her grandmother, Beverly, owns one male Shih-tzu, one female Shih-tzu and one female Bichon Friese! Which means she breeds full-breed Shih-tzus and Zuchons! To top it off, both females were pregnant! The Zuchons were born May 28th and the Shih-tzus were born June 6th. Lydia called me the next day to let me know about the new Shih-tzus. I told her our concern about Australia and she said she would watch the puppy if we needed! I laughed. I knew that was not Ted's only reason for not taking a dog on right now. I told Ted that we had a sitter...did he still want to wait? I told him he total freedom to say no and I would go along with whatever he decided. He told me we could go for it! What a surprise!

As we were planning our trip to Kansas City this week for Ted's 40th, Ted surprised me further by saying, "Let's go to Samantha's grandma's house on the way down to Kansas City!" I couldn't believe it. My predictable, safe husband can not be so easily put in a box. He was showing me some new colors. We visited the pups and decided to go with the male Zuchon (the female was taken). I didn't really like the coloring of the female Shih-tzu (mostly black), so I guess that's why I went with the Zuchon. Above is a picture of Ted holding the puppy to be named. I would like to call him "Charlie", but I'm getting ideas from the kids, too. We like "Jack", too...but I prefer two syllable names. Ted liked "Tiger" for Tiger Woods...but I think that sounds too feline.

Beverly gave us a great price. We put money down and agreed we would pick him up after our camping trip to Illinois Beach State Park (August 5th or 6th?) when the puppy will be 10 weeks old. We signed a simple agreement... and off we went to Kansas City!

While we were in Kansas City, Ted played a lot of golf, we ate out, slepted in, had free hot breakfasts, ate dessert every night and enjoyed each other's company! It was awesome! We even shopped for our future puppy. We got a dog dish, leash, collar, book on puppies, dog shampoo, detangler, and a couple of toys. I couldn't be happier.