Trick or Treat or Puppy

 

For some reason Kiernan's school chose Halloween for its fundraiser pizza night. It seems like every group he belongs to dose something like this: buy X and some % of your purchase will go to 'our' organization. The last time we did this was the California Tortilla thing where Megan threw up. This time it was Domino's Pizza. Apparently Halloween has always been a very busy night for pizza delivery. Now add a bunch of cooperative Twin Ridge parents and behold an hour and a half wait for a Pizza to hold up your tricks and treats.

The lady who delivered it was so nice and our pizzas were hot so I shouldn't complain too much but boy were we champing at the bit to get out the door.

Martin came to witness American Trick or Treating in all its glory. Kiernan had a rough fall in the dark on someones concrete steps. Megan was ecstatic, she kept running up to me and yelling "Mom! I got MORE CANDY!" .

We didn't get many Trick or Treating pictures. It was too dark and too involved. 

It was pretty cold but they both had good layering costumes.

Saturday morning was really cold...and windy...and the last game of the soccer season.

I felt so bad for those kids. It was miserable for me and I was sitting under a blanket. Poor Aunt Pammy and Kaleb came out to spend the morning at Gaver's farm and cheer on Kiernan. It was too cold for Gaver's (it got up to 54 but the wind chill was still in the 40's).

Once the game was over the kids got season end trophy's.

Someone liked his trophy very much. I will name no names.

We spent most of the rest of the weekend working around the house and especially in the yard.

We started all the winter prep for the flower beds and finished up with tying up the berry bushes. David did our final mowing of the year, mulching leaves into the grass as he went. I chopped down the grasses and sedum and hosta stems. 

 

We composted moldy pumpkins and tore down the cucumber vines. David did the edging and leaf blowing and I cleaned up the hedges.

Sunday morning we went to see some puppies.

Most of you know that we have been looking for a dog pretty much since we moved into our house. 

Not long ago one of David's 'cousins' (its a big family he was probably a 2nd or 3rd cousin) John Konrad died suddenly and unexpectedly. I stayed home with the kids and David went to the memorial service. On the family program for the service there was a section about John (I always heard him referred to as Johnny) being a founder of a German Shepherd rescue organization called All Shepherds Rescue.

We decided that we would try to adopt a dog from them.

Megan is wild and squeely and rescue dogs (and German Shepherds particularly) are sometimes quite sensitive to wild and squeely. It has been a long search.

Recently I saw that they had puppies. We were not looking for a puppy. We wanted an adult dog that was in need of a home. A dog with some house training and maybe some obedience training would have been our ideal.

Nothing deals with squeely and hyper like a puppy though.

The health advantages of getting a mutt instead of a pure breed are good. The confidence advantage of meeting the mother ( a very sweet calm dog named Adele ) is huge.

The selection advantage of having the ASR foster advise us with full knowledge of the puppies temperaments and of Megan's inexperience with dogs plus toddler tendencies was priceless.

We went up for an evaluative look-see.

Kiernan was immediately smitten.

Megan was delighted but wound way way up the whole time.

We weren't sure.

A puppy is so much work. It would land so heavily on mom and our our wallets.

Then of course the heart melting factor hit.

Donna climbed right into moms lap. She cuddled with Kiernan (see picture above).

It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

We are in for a ton of work over the next year plus but we are going for it.

We signed papers and went home to get things puppy ready. Mom got out some of her Casper stuff.

Kiernan and I went to 84 lumber to get a few split rails to finish the fence that the tree fall took out.

David did a thorough yard inspection for fence gaps and hazards. Mom went shopping for a harness. This week we need to get a crate a vet and some other stuff.

I am nervous and very happy.

Not nearly as happy as the kids though.

Here she is.

Donna (possibly soon to be Pax for her peaceful demeanor and her representation of obedience) will be with us next weekend if all goes to plan.