Blue ...our DOG!!!

We got a.....  DOG!

The entire family has been bothering me for YEARS to get a dog and now that we live in a big house with lots of land I started running out of excuses.  I found myself falling back on the "because I said so" reason ...which by the way is still a perfectly good reason.

Of course I did still have the reason that it would be ME taking care of the dog and that I PERSONALLY was not ready for the extra responsibilities ...then I started thinking **secretly**...  that it might be fun to have a dog and that I did have more free time lately.  I couldn't admit my secret thoughts to anyone because I didn't want to be pressured into my choice so I started **secretly** visiting puppy stores to see if I really liked dogs.  :)  Turns out I do.  HA!

So Christmas night I gathered the family around the table after dinner and gave them a leash and collar and said they could have a dog.  Screaming and jumping ensued...  even some tears on my part, but I wasn't sure if they were happy or scared ones.  :)

Little did we know how hard it would be to actually find a dog.  I was really against getting a dog from a puppy store ...just because that sounded wrong on so many levels, but it got really difficult when I realized there are NO shelter or rescue dogs from New England!!  All the rescue dogs that are here have actually been imported from the South where less smart people think that dogs should not be fixed...  So shelters in the south ship their dogs up north and that is how we got Blue.

Blue is from Little Rock, Arkansas.  He drove 1500 miles to Portland, Maine and then our family drove two hours to go pick him up from his quarantined foster home on Janurary 23rd!  He actually came with the name Raleigh, but after a long process and very detailed voting process he was re-named Blue.  He was born on October 1st and his mommy was a Boxer/Lab mix...  that's all we know.  :)

Our house is getting used to our new four-legged friend and so far so good.  He's a mellow dog as far as puppies go, but he still likes to run through the snow and chase red laser dots around the house.  The chickens hate him, the cats dislike him and the guinea pigs could care less.

I'm sure there are many Blue stories to come ...like today when he managed to tear apart an entire roll of paper towels.  If you can't imagine the mess that would make, take one paper towel and tear it into tiny pieces and throw it all over your floor.  Now imagine doing that to 149 more sheets.  That's how big of a mess it makes.  For extra authenticity of the scope of the actual mess you could pour a cup of water in the corner and pretend it's pee.

I wrote BOOKS! :)

TA DA!

Look what I made!  I printed two books; one of our time in Denmark and one of our time in Germany!  

These books are my blogs!  :)

First of all I can't believe I wrote so much!!  

Second of all, I'm super happy I did!  I might have forgotten about that guy in the parking lot I cursed with living in Denmark forever or the time I was threatened to have the Danish cops on me because I was forcing my daughters to play volleyball against their will.... or the time we tried to make corn dogs in oil so hot it would melt metal!  ...and my stories are complete with pictures!  

The books are really cool and I'd be more than happy to print one for someone if they want some good reading!  (only $130)  :)  HA!

I do think it was well worth it.  What if the internet crashes??  I'd lose my blog forever and all the pictures and everything.  I'd be sad.  :(

There you have it...  my books.  :)

More Happys in NH

Baby steps to starting my blog again...  

Here are lots of pictures from waaaaaaayyyy back when Paul's sister came to visit us for two weeks during the summer.  Two weeks is BY FAR the longest time we have spent with Sandra and her kids, but it was really fun to get to know them all better!

During their time here we ate.  Lots.  Everyday.  

Good thing Sandra cooked us dinner for the most part.  :)  I stole some of her recipes and as a matter of fact we are eating her white fish and gnocchi recipe tonight!!  

The lobster dinner was the most amusing.  :)  Everyone ...EVEN THE KIDS ...got their very own lobster.  None of us really knew what to do with it though.  :)  Sierra tagged out.  She doesn't eat birds or crustaceans.  I predict she will be vegan one day.  Anyways......

We also had water fights and played on the trampoline...

AND then it was the Fourth of July!  YAY America!!!  Oh, I forgot about Canada Day.

 First it was Canada Day!!!   YAY Canada!!!

Which was really the only reason I had to make a American Flag cake.  I can't be outdone by the Canadians and we all know life is a competition in which I must win.  :)

For some American culture we went to Boston and wandered the streets for a while.  We didn't go anywhere in particular, but we had researched where to BEST ice cream place was in Boston.  Sandra and I thought we would treat the kids to the best ice cream ever at the end of the day so off we go.  We finally made it there and it turned out to be a little cafe in an interesting part of town...  Very yuppie-ish.  ...and the ice cream was very special indeed.  All natural ingredients.  All organic.   All disgusting.

$75 dollars later we left and the kids were slightly grouchy about the event.  I couldn't argue with them, Michaela's mint ice cream really did taste like bad toothpaste.  It was like they tried to flavor it with REAL mint leaves, the nerve!  Oh well, it's not like we walked two miles for this special ice cream or anything.  ...Oh wait.  We did.

Sandra and kids have already booked their stay for next summer and a good thing too!  Things fill up quickly here at the Happy Hotel.  We only had eight nights of vacancies this summer...  otherwise we were booked every night.  Please place your reservations as soon as possible to get the best room.  We won't turn anyone away, but you may end up in a tent.  :)

AH.  I left out beach pictures.  

We went to the beach on the Fourth of July weekend.  CRAZY crowded, but it was fun and we got to stop and eat at Petey's which is our new favorite "clam shack" on the coast.  :)

Lost TOOTH!

I had no idea my little Andrea was getting so big!!  I never would have guessed her tiny teeth were even old enough to fall out.  She's barely five!

Sure, she's mastered sarcasm and eye rolling just like her older siblings ...she even has a pretty good "whatever" going on, but even still, she seemed like my Little Poozie.

A week ago I was at Sierra's open house at her school and she sent me a video of Andrea's TWO WIGGLY TEETH!!  As I watched the movie I gasped out loud at the back of the room ...only loud enough for the back few rows of parents to turn and stare, but I couldn't believe it...TWO wiggly teeth!  And today Poozie has a tiny hole where one of her tiny little teeth were.

For the record (since that what this blog is) ...her class went on a field trip to an apple farm to pick apples today.  I'm pretty sure that a few bites of apples fresh off the tree caused this little tooth to loosen up quite a bit today.  :)  However, technically it didn't fall out while eating the apple; it fell out right after she ate a tiny green sucker.  She had finished the sucker and was chewing on the stick and POP.  Out fell the tooth!!

There was minimal drama, but there was a few seconds there where I thought the whole event would go horribly wrong.  When Andrea showed me the tooth she seemed pretty concerned.  I quickly put on my excited face and proclaimed a party was in order!!  She was then a little worried when she saw some blood, but I told her it was from her tooth, not her mouth and that seemed to make it all better.  :)

Then I lost a tooth.  I lost the tooth that Andrea lost.  UGH!

Parenting at it's finest.

- Little five year old loses her very first tooth and entrusts her mommy to hold it so that it stays safe until bedtime for the tooth fairy.
- Mommy places tooth in the kitchen on a piece of paper even though she was thinking how bad of an idea that was as she was doing it.

(Mommy was obviously tired from her long day and clearly not able to be held accountable for being making such a dumb choice of leaving a teeny tiny white tooth on a big white piece of paper on a huge and cluttered kitchen counter.)

Needless to say I panicked twenty minutes before bedtime when the tooth was no where to be found.  We swept and searched everywhere.  I had no choice but to "borrow" a tooth from Sierra's collection of broken teeth she's been saving up.  (Ewwww, but thankgoodness!!)

Yes, I was less than truthful with Poozie.  I gave her Sierra's broken tooth and acted like the world was good.  I'm sorry Andrea, but the tooth fairy was so excited to take your cute little tooth she took it from the counter while we weren't looking.  It happens sometimes.  Impatient Fairies....

Bye Bye Wall 1 & 2

What happens when three Happys gather in one house...?  

This.....

(yes, the wall was one big mirror...)

Kids thought it was great.

After Paul's brother and dad left I didn't talk to my husband for three days.  

I was a little traumatized by the whirlwind of destruction.

These two walls are now gone and it's not that bad now that I am used to it.  I'm still mourning the loss of my pantry, but I've adjusted.  I keep reminding myself that my kitchen in Germany had a total of three cupboards so I'm doing pretty good in the great scheme of kitchen life.

What do you think Mom?  :)

Now we have room for the ten foot long shuffleboard table in the green pig room.  Everyone needs a ten foot long shuffleboard table.... We can play when you and Dad come visit.  :)

The Happy Ballerina?

   

How sweet.

HA!  If anyone knew how much crying and screaming and bribing went on for this "sweet" and "happy" child to simply PUT ON her dance recital costume it wouldn't be so "sweet".  It would be more of a "thank goodness THAT is over"

I had some serious doubts as to whether or not my little ballerina would even make it on the stage at all.  She cried through her original fitting of the costume; she refused to move her feet during the dress rehearsal.  On the morning of the recital she screamed while I lovingly put her hair into a bun, she protested getting into the car, and she pouted all the way through me checking her in with her class backstage.  The entire process was a step below miserable.

Andrea finally musters a smile once she is surrounded by her surprise bribery items backstage.  She has a new colorwonder set, full PEZ dispenser, goldfish snacks, and a pink kitty cat water bottle.  All to ensure I could leave her and go to my seat...

I left her backstage and we all sat and waited in our $20 seats.  (FYI, having to pay a total of $80 to watch my own child dance in a school auditorium is NOT amusing to me.)

AND TADA!!!

HER DANCE

At the time I didn't realize how, uh...  unorganized it was.  The first 30 seconds are really good, it's kinda all downhill from there.  :)  Nevermind though.  I was just thrilled beyond belief that she made it on the stage!  In the end, it was worth it.  HA.  Maybe...  :)  She was the cutest ballerina ever and we were all proud of her for doing it.

PS.  This happened way back in June.  :)

Kryzers in NH!

A few weeks ago Shelly came to visit.  Shelly was the first friend I made in Germany and she rocks.  She is totally selfless and non-judgmental, she has the biggest laugh and even when something, or a situation, clearly sucks, she has a crazy way of making it seem okay.  I never would have survived Germany without her.  

People always ask if I miss Germany.  Nope, I just miss my friends.

 

 

Scotty's best friend in the whole world ...even to this day, is Clay.  Those two are like two little peas in one crazy whacked out pod.  They just get each other.  :)  

I had decided that the reason I found some of my best friends while living overseas because we were all coping with the same, often crappy, situations.  Sharing a common enemy really does bring people closer together and if the common enemy happens to be the entire German Population then ...well, that's how it goes!  :)  

I never thought about it until recently, but I think it was the same for my kids.  The friends they made were in the same situation: new school, new culture, no family, moms going slightly crazy while dad traveled the world working...  I miss my kids friends.

Reason #86 why Shelly is super awesome: She kisses frogs.

Reason # 194:  She jumps really high on trampolines.

Night time wrestling matches were hilarious!  : )  These four kids did not have one argument the entire time.  Little Tiny Angels!  Ben and Andrea would fall asleep immediately; Scotty and Clay would stay up talking and that was totally fine with me.

How cute is little Ben!  Poozie and Ben had a great time!  :)  These two used to have "Tempertantrum Throwing Contests" in the German ISH cafeteria while all the expensive mommys, who were wearing their furs and high heels, gave Shelly and me evil, unapproving stares.

 Michaela.   A little too cool for us.  "Ewww, don't get sand in my area".  Uh.  Okay Michaela.  :)

I should have taken a close up of this bright orange salamander.  :)  It was the coolest animal ever!  I love that Ben decided to take one home ...without telling us.  HA!!  Luckily we figured it out and returned the little orange guy back to his family.