Look what I found on petsmart.com!!!

This is really a joke, right?
LOL

I was looking for this:

Yes, we did go buy one this evening, the crate, not the baby stroller, ;-) and a small red collar and leash! We are ready for the puppy we have yet to find!!!! :-)

We have meetings with 2 people on Sunday... on our drive down to Disney World... if we choose one we will pick it up on our drive home on Thursday...

We will see a total of 6 yellow female labs, 3 in each litter. We are praying that the perfect little puppy for us is one of the 6! Or maybe she's not and that'll be okay too! All in God's time, but who likes waiting!?

(she just might be one of the three to the left of this picture!!)

Get excited!!!
We are!! ;-)

Sadness Turns to Excitement!

Most of you know that Nolan and I have been talking about getting a yellow female lab for quite some time... while living in Virginia we knew we'd only be there for 6 months or so, in an apartment, so that just really wasn't a good time. Then, we decided as soon as we got to Florida we would get one. Now that we have lived in Florida for almost 2 months, one might wonder, why is our back yard still empty? :-(

We had been waiting to get one from Andy, the guy/breeder, who trained my mom's black lab, Magic, to be a hunting machine! :-) His puppies are to be born this week sometime, but won't be ready to take home until the middle/end of June... Did I mention he is in Dallas, Texas? There in lies the (now solved) problem. Nolan and I were planning to drive to Texas together to get the dog, as Nolan could take leave. This was when we thought he would start flight training in August. August has now turned to June and Nolan won't be able to take leave to go with me. So, I considered driving to Texas by myself. The closer June got the more nervous I got about driving alone. So, we looked into flying the dog on Continental Airlines from Dallas to Pensacola. Continental recommends dogs be atleast 12 weeks old, and I really want a puppy puppy - ie 6 - 9 weeks old... All of our options were running out... Not to mention the ever-so-quickly increasing financial costs involved with such an operation.

Sadly, yesterday, we gave in and let the idea of getting a dog from Andy in Texas go. We are now looking for one here in Florida. We head to Disney World on Sunday (YAY!), so we can't actually get it until we get back, on or after May 4th, but we are happy to be getting a dog now a month earlier than we had originally thought! :-)

Yesterday our search began...

I called a few people I found in the Thrifty Nickel and the Pensacola News Journal and things are looking up! :-) The excitement is mounting! There are a few options for us, as of yet... We looked at an 8 week old litter yesterday evening and got all excited about getting our puppy very soon! The puppies we looked at were really only 3/4 lab... the mom was a lab mix, with white on her feet, so we weren't as excited about the puppies once we discovered this, but they were still such cute puppies! There was one that didn't have white on it's feet, so she might be an option if we don't find any others in the coming weeks...

We look forward to sharing about our new puppy, Killer...

or maybe we will call it Bailey...

or Daisy...

or something we've yet to think up!

Any ideas? or votes for one name or the other?

PS - I think I have reset the options of the blog to allow ANYONE to leave a comment... so comment away! :-)

Who Knew?

Okay seriously... who knew about this already?! :-)

Here is my interesting fact about zip codes across the U.S. that I realized yesterday... while thinking about where all we have lived... so far!

Burien, Washington (state) 98166
(Nolan's home town)

College Station, Texas 77840
(where we attend TAMU)

Pensacola, Florida 32508
(where we live now for flight training)

Stafford, Virginia 22554
(where we lived for 8 months for The Basic School)

Notice how as you travel from West to East... the first number in the zip code decreases...

To test my theory I looked up a few others...

Salt Lake City, Utah 84101
(between WA and TX and it does start with an 8)

Branson, Missouri 65615
(between TX and FL..)

So really, who knew?

And if you did... how did you discover this? :-) Yay for random thoughts!

Texas!

Unfortunately the camera/computer is being wierd and many of the pictures that we took aren't able to be read, unless I find the oh so important cord. (which went missing during/after the move) We are still looking, but here's what we have for now...

Whoop!

I didn't know the state sign said
"Proud Home of President George W. Bush"

A bus towing a Ford Ranger...
only in Louisiana! ;-)

This is for Charla and Richard!
"Jenkins Road"
Somewhere in East Texas off I-10

Of all of the years we spent in College Station we never took a picture in the blue bonnets,
so we did something about that! ;-)
This is across the street from Jane Long!!!!:-)
Yep, I got to visit!!! for about an hour, which just wasn't long enough,
but I am so grateful for being able to go back to such wonderful friends! :-)

More pictures when I get the camera/computer figured out!

Bigger In Texas

Everything really is bigger in Texas and maybe because I am a native Texan, better too!

I found a county fair to go to last night, The Santa Rosa County Fair!
"What a let down!" pretty much sums it up! There is just really nothing like going to the Brazoria County fair in Angleton, Texas. And many other Texas countyfairs I am sure....

(trying to take a picture of us with the rides in the background)

I think the worst part for me, was that I invited our friends, Jason and Angela and their 17 month old daughter, Madison, to go with us... they too weren't really impressed... I guess small towns in CA have better fairs too! haha

A few highlights/interesting points:

• The FFA/4-H kids don't raise any animals? steers, heifers, sheep, pigs, rabbits ? Nothing?! Okaaaaaaaaaaaay... :-)
  
• The calf scramble was this:

Announcer: "Hey kids, any of you want to be in the calf scramble? Climb through the arena fence and come to the middle of the arena!"

Paige thinks: "Are you kidding me? Kids as young as 5 are running out! I'm not believing it - what a liability! AH!"

They proceed to let out two, yes TWO, calves with yellow ribbons tied to their tails and tell the kids to get the ribbons!

Another "Are you kidding me?" moment: Hell-o! Cows KICK with their back legs! Sideways too!! These poor kids! It makes so much more sense to me to grab the calf around the neck, halter it and drag it to the middle of the arena, like they do at every other calf scramble! haha

None the less, the so-called calf scramble was somewhat cute, but just not the same... I LOVE Texas!

• They did have rides and a petting zoo - with random animals -

ie 4 horned something (goat?) you can only see three, but imagine the other horn coming out the other side of the poor animals head... talk about a headache!

a Zedonk (zebra mixed with a donkey)

See the legs for the zebra stripes!

• We did buy something I had heard about, but never had the opportunity to try...
  
  

A Fried Snickers Bar
Can't say that we will ever need to buy one again, but at least we can say we have tried it...
(I am laughing because Jason and Nolan verbalized what I was thinking... that it looks like a fried turd... haha nothing like bathroom humor! )

• Oh and no alcohol at the fair - not a drop! Not that I care, but in Texas you can't have any kind of outing without beer!!

So that was our big Friday night out in Florida!

--- Random Extras ---

The other day we went exploring the fort, Fort Barrancas, that is just down the road from where our house is... pictures really don't do justice!

inside the fort, at the top...

Outside the fort walls, at the top of the hill

The View of Pensacola Bay
(this is what I mean by having the beach 2 football fields away)

See the two shiny silver parts sticking way up over 2 story buildings.... that's a ship... hopefully gives an idea of how huge it is!

Close up
This is one of the Navy's rides that is docked here in Pensacola for some repairs...

I think I just assumed everyone knew this and we all know what "assuming"does... so...

We didn't buy our house...
"Our House" meant it was ours, to live in, for the time being :-)

It is a base house that we essentially "rent" from the Naval base with the money that the Marine Corps gives us each month. Included in our rent is all of our bills: water, electricity, trash, etc AND the criminals who work for $1/day for the base, mow our front yard for us...

I must say.. it is such a great deal!
We LOVE our house, LOVE living in Florida and of course, LOVE each other! ;-)

Our great adventure continues! :-)