A new addition to the family!

On Saturday we welcomed another member to the Sullivan family. No...I haven't been hiding a prego belly for 9 months. We adopted Zoe, a 3 year old Golden Retriever (sorry, I don't have any pictures uploaded yet). Her previous owners are going through the process of selling their house, and decided Zoe needed a home where she could have some more room to run, and Camp Swampy has plenty of that.

We picked her up in Ames on Saturday and brought her back in her carrier in the back of the truck. She did pretty well for a 2 hour drive, but she was ready to be out when we got her home. After a quick tour of the yard Brian had her house set up and ready for the night. She wasn't too sure about the food, the water, or the new house we gave her, but she did pretty well for her first night in the country.

Sunday morning we got up and went to church, and on the way back we were going to stop at Brian's parents. I suggested we stop and get Zoe and I'd walk her up through the woods. I got a surprise when I opened the door to get out...Zoe had gotten her collar off and ran right up to meet me! Fortunately she had decided to stay by the door we came in and out of while we were getting her stuff set up the night before and didn't just take off to try to get 'home'. 

We were told she is 'high energy' and that she certainly is! We are working on teaching her not to jump up on people and so far she is doing very well with Brian and I. A game of fetch the frisbee looked like it went pretty well despite the crunchy snow slowing Zoe down a bit, and it kept Aiden and Connor entertained from inside the house. Aiden REALLY wanted to go out and play with her too, but he had chosen not to listen to Brian most of the afternoon, so inside he stayed.

Connor loves to say 'puppy, puppy' whenever he hears her bark or sees her out the window, but he just screams when she gets too close... even through the patio door!

Today I was on dog duty, and luckily it was almost 50 degrees out this afternoon. She is going to give me quite the workout this spring/summer...she loves to run and kept looking back at me like 'why are we moving sooo slow?' I know she would have loved to be off her leash, but I'm as new to having a dog as she is to being in the country, so we played it safe.

Night time seems to be the biggest adjustment, both for us getting used to sleeping though a dog barking, and her getting used to being out in the country sleeping in a new house.

 

Atleast one of us had a productive day...

I had surprisingly productive days on Monday & Tuesday. I made my list of most important things to do for the day (probably why I had productive days) and actually crossed off most of the items both days.

Yesterday Connor seemed to have different plans for my to-do list. The #1 item: deep clean the kitchen. Get rid of piles of papers, mop, clean off appliances, everything. I also had a list of Mary Kay to-do's I wanted to get done so I could relax after Brian got home from work.

Connor's to-do list looked a little different:
1. Learn how to climb on barstools so I can reach the piles mom is trying to sort out.
2. Discover I can escape the confines of the jacuzzi tub while mom is taking a shower.
   (mom note: he got 0 points for dismount on that one, no more waiting to take my shower until after Brian leaves for work)
3. Throw off mom's schedule by demanding lunch early and requiring a nap before 11:00am
4. Find out that I can get into Aiden's room by opening the bathroom door.
5. Figure out I can get into the bathroom by opening my closet door. 
6. When all else fails dump out every bucket of toys I own.

When Brian got home from work I had crossed NOTHING off my to-do list, and Connor had accomplished EVERYTHING on his!!