Our Newest Member of the Family!

MEET ADA!

Ok, so here is the story. Jared and I have been seriously thinking about getting a dog ever since we moved into our house. I almost surprised Jared with a rhodesian ridgeback puppy for Christmas, but decided we didn't have the time to train a puppy and that we should wait till summer (Jared agreed). So the weekend before last we spent a couple hours at the Rose City Garden Dog Show. We were able to meet a lot of breeders and even some of the dogs that they were going to breed. We were ready to walk out of there with all the connections to get the perfect puppy this summer... then we met Ada. Ada (pronounced Aida) is a beautiful 11 month old girl. Her owners had been showing her, but then she stopped growing taller. She is now just barely under the breed standard height and will not grow more, so they are looking for a new home for her. After a few days consideration, we accepted Ada for a week trial (that started yesterday). We are confident already that she will not be leaving at the end of the week. She is wonderful! We have taken her on several walks... she doesn't tug on the leash and only rarely barks. At home she doesn't dig or chew (except her chew toys). In a most of the photos she looks pretty timid, but that was mostly on her first walk. Today she had her ears perked up more often than not.

It has been fun to watch the progression of her relationship with the cats. Right off the bat Samba was curious and only a little timid. Awas of course would not even come in the room and had his tail as large as the rest of his body. Once we let Ada out of her crate, she tentatively checked out Samba, but neither of them got too close. This morning Samba decided to start testing the limits and ended up chasing Ada around the house. Is our dog a push over to a cat? Nope, now Ada no longer runs, but instead hops around in play mode and scares Samba. We will have to wait and see which way the pendulum swings tomorrow. Awas is still very timid and easily puffs up, but has been brave enough to sniff around Ada when she is asleep. Speaking of sleeping, one area where Ada may be a little too opinionated is to do with the sleeping arrangements. Last night and tonight she has slept right between Jared and I... and she takes up more than her one third of the bed. At one point she even had the nerve to join us under the covers! Her owner did warn us that that was one of her favorite places to sleep. We may have to upgrade to a king size bed if this keeps up. =)

\

New Roots at Sun River

This weekend we went on a couples retreat to Sun River with New Roots, the young married's group at church. Filly, a guy Jared plays soccer with, and his wife Tiffany carpooled there and back with us, 4-5 hours each way. We had a great time playing car games and "Would you rather." They are definitely our type of couple! =)
One the retreat we got to know a few other couples better during the photo scavenger hunt. While there is some debate by the other teams, we know that our team won. Several of us have the hard earned bruises to prove it.

Australian Rob in Town

Jared's childhood Aussie friend Rob came into town for a week and stayed with Kat and Caleb. We got to see them quite a few times for Bowling, Magic Tricks, and Pizza in Portland, to name just a bit of the fun. They also made it over for my Birthday for a low-key party with beef stroganoff, cran-apple crisp, and a game of Settler's of Catan.

Jacinda and Matt Visit

Jacinda and Matt visited the first weekend in January... our final Christmas of 2007... or was it our first of 2008? When they first arrived we visited Jared at school. Though we missed his last class by 10 minutes, we still got to see plenty of kids pass by joyfully saying "Bye Mr. Wiley!"

After that we had an incredibly delicious meal at Sweet Tomato thanks to mom & dad Wiley.

Once we got home it was hang out and gift opening time. It was great just to sit and catch up with family.

The next night we had a big family reunion meal at the spaghetti factory and then an MK reunion at our house, both of which were also very memorable times. Saturday we dropped Cinda and Matt off at the train depot for their trip up to Seattle.

Mom Chally, here are some gift opening aftermath photos, but they show the Christmas decorations that you wanted to see:

Christmas in Seattle

New years weekend we had a good time in Seattle with my family. Dad had been raving about Roman Holiday for awhile now, so it was nice to finally watch it with him. It was definitely a good classic... though Jared won't remember as he slept through most of it. I am pretty sure he was preparing for the squid fishing trip that night. It turned out to be one of the windiest trips yet, which explains why we were the only two people out there. Even with hot drinks, hand warmers. and a minimum of seven layers each, we did not last longer than an hour. It was pretty hard to even get the line to sink and the wind made it impossible to feel what was happening so, needles to say, we did not catch anything.

The next day we opened presents and had family time in the morning and afternoon. That night was a scrumptious "Christmas" dinner with my personal favorite, the sweet potato/yam dish. Yummmm. Then it was back out for more squid fishing, this time with friends Matt and Jannelle. While it was still incredibly cold, the wind was much better and there were quite a few groups on the dock. Jared caught the most of anyone we saw, which was unfortunately only three. The only other person in our group to catch one was Sara, Matt's girlfriend. It turned out perfect since she had never caught one before.

One the way home from Seattle (the next day) we welcomed the new year with the Meeuwses and their annual burning of the Christmas tree. There was coffee, cookies, and plenty of games to last us through the night. Early that morning we made the rest of the drive home to Vancouver.