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Creating a Blog has been something I have wanted to do for years but have been putting it off… until now! I created this blog to document life adventures, celebrate accomplishments , learn from failures and setbacks and above all – living life & making the most of everyday.
Life Now –
New Marriage, New House, New Puppy.. what is usually dished out over a few years, we crammed it all into 3 weeks. Between packing – moving – painting- unpacking- decorating- post wedding wind down – mid summer adventures – training a puppy – the first few months of our new found life were INSANE.
I exchanged vows with the best guy on the planet on July 08, 2017. A week after the wedding we purchased our first home here in the beautiful PNW and immediately began packing and moving our life. A week after our house closed, we picked up our new puppy, Ollie (8 weeks old) – partially due to puppy fever and partially to get our 5 year old pup, Opie, a full time friend.
How we Met our Doggos
Dog #1) When Derrick and I first moved in together – after about 7 months of dating – we debated about bringing a dog into our lives.. we both really wanted a dog but I was working 2 jobs and he was full time as a service tech at Toyota. We were renting a duplex that my mom owned. We ate dinner sitting on the floor around the hand-me-down Ikea coffee table that was generously donated to us. I remember looking around the house, thinking “we can’t afford a dog, we don’t even have a couch”. Derrick didn’t waiver and continued to cruise the craigslist pet ads day and night.. A few days in, he had inquired about a few doggos, but none of them panned out.
The idea has settled with me and the more I thought about having a fur baby running around the house, the more excitement built inside of me. Soon enough, I was also on the hunt to find our newest addition. I soon came across an ad that read “Tucker, 5 month old Labrador- Australian Shepard Mix”. He was mostly black with a white chest, 3/4 paws were white and his front left leg was solid white, and a cute white mustache that made him look like an old man puppy. (He is definitely a Lab-Pitbull mix, not Aus Shepard)
I knew from the second I saw the ad that he was supposed to be with us. I sent the link to Derrick and told him “this is our dog!” He must have seen what I saw because he didn’t hesitate and contacted the owner immediately. The next thing we knew we were waiting to meet “Tucker” at the McDonald’s parking lot in Gig Harbor.
He ran out of the car and straight over us and my heart melted instantaneously. We handed over the cash, loaded up the kennel and toys, and headed home with no idea what we just signed up for.
We immediately changed his name to Opie, (we had been set on this name months before finding him) and he was responding to his new name that night. We were ecstatic to be new puppy parents and our relationship grew exponentially from that moment on.
Dog #2) The decision to get a second dog had been anticipated and planned out for a while. Derrick and I were living in our second home together and we were established in our careers and living comfortably, so supporting another dog was not an issue.
We were in the last 6 months of a 3-year rental lease and though the landlords allowed pets, we really didn’t want to fork over another $500 deposit and we did not want the house to get damaged with the chaos and training of a new puppy.
Timing was everything and it worked out as close to perfect as humanly possible. Not only we were planning a wedding that was right around the corner, our lease was ending and we were shopping for our first house to purchase (I am a full time Realtor and I was able to manage our purchase timeline with ease and structure closing to avoid overlapping rent and mortgage payments).
The moment we reached Mutual Acceptance on the house we were purchasing, we started surfing Craigslist and the local humane society (Lets be honest- we had been looking for months prior), while also telling friends and family that we are looking for a fury friend to add to our little family. In a flash, Derrick and I have become Mr & Mrs and we are on track to become homeowners. As we are packing our old house and prepping for the new one, we continue the search for the newest member. Derrick had his sights set on finding a German Shepard, while I thought a Golden Retriever would be a great addition.
I’d say we got the best of both worlds when I stumbled across an ad for the cutest little mutt. The ad read, “8 week old Male, German Shepard/ Golden Retriever Mix”. We stared at the 2 photos of a sleeping puppy and began coming up with names for him. We connect with the owner and after a few failed appointment attempts, we finally met at the Mullinex park-n-ride to meet the little guy. We let Opie play and sniff him for a few minutes to make sure we weren’t going to have a stand off. All was OK and we headed home with our new fury friend.
We have now become homeowners and we were slowly moving in to brace ourselves for the chaos yet to come. The new pup couldn’t stay at the old house since it was a rental, so we made one last trip that night just to bring our bed over, and the 4 of us stayed our first night in our new house with our new puppy.
2dogsandablog.com 