Returning to Georgia

A lot has happened in the last month or so, so let me see if I can make this fit into a nutshell version.

The dog I wrote about…well, I got him. His name was Tiger and we renamed him Tucker. He’s super smart and very sweet. I love him but Adam isn’t into having 4 dogs so he has to be worked on…but very subtly. He isn’t house trained so that made for an interesting and stressful road trip for Adam.

It took us nearly a full day longer than planned to get on the road. We packed the trailer with help from a friend of Adam’s (really he mostly just helped with the piano). Somehow, the things left in the house and yard filled up the entire trailer! We weren’t expecting that at all. It was just a good thing that I sold some things on craigslist and what I couldn’t sell, I took to Goodwill (2 truckloads).

We drove to Provo the first day, getting in entirely too late.

The next morning, I left on a road trip to California with my dad. My grandpa had been sick and wasn’t expected to live so they were sending him home. My mom made it there before he died but my dad and I did not. Most of my time off was actually spent in CA instead of UT like I had planned but I’m glad I didn’t pass up the opportunity to go out there and see everyone. I will post more about my time spent there another time.

Then another road trip back to Orem with both my mom and dad this time. I spent two days in Orem. I got to meet Aileah, my newest neice. What a cutie! On Sunday, the whole family got together for dinner. So I got to spend some time with everyone, including Mike and Mia who came over to say hello to me. They gave me 2 homemade cookies that made me very happy on the flight back to GA. :o) (Thanks, guys.)

In the mean time, Adam was making slow progress to South Dakota where he was meeting his dad to caravan back. The dogs were refusing to go to the bathroom in the rain (which it did the entire time) so there were many accidents. Not all were from Tucker. So dogs and people alike were stressed to the max on this trip.

He finally made it to South Dakota almost a day later than planned which cut his two days off in half. The dogs managed to get ahold of his aunt’s cat while they were running around her fenced yard. Poor cat. Luckily, even though Adam was on the other side of the fence, they listened to him and let the cat go but the experience wasn’t good for his stress level. Adam said he had some bite marks but over all wasn’t hurt. They didn’t open him up…thank goodness! Adam felt terrible about it. And his aunt doesn’t seem to have disowned us because of it.

More slow progress from there to home. He had to drive through the night on that last night in order to make it home in time for a flight to Dayton, OH for some training for work. He left Sunday afternoon.

I got home on Monday night. Barry and Lanette took care of the dogs for us during the stretch we were both gone. They also cleaned up the house and yard some and blocked off the bedrooms from the dogs since tools and other things were out.

They were kind enough to invite me over to dinner every night for a week while I worked on finding some things and unpacking boxes. My motivation was low however and I don’t think I unpacked a single box the first two days. Then I got tired of living like that and got to unpacking the kitchen things. I’m still missing quite a few things but I can cook now. Never mind that I have to go over and borrow cookie sheets, pitchers, glasses and various things.

Adam got home from Dayton and got to work. We work different shifts. I work from 8AM – 4:30PM while Adam works 2PM – 11PM. So we don’t see each other too much these days.

I am preparing to take my final for dog training in the next 2-3 weeks and providing I pass, I’ll graduate. If I get above a 90%, I’ll graduate with honors.

Adam has been working on some plumbing for the new laundry room. It’s very cool that he is so comfortable and competent doing that kind of thing. The fact that I was sleeping kid of hindered his progress last night since he was trying to be quiet and couldn’t drill anything. He is amazing with all the handyman stuff he knows how to do.

On Saturday, I started pulling poison ivy from the yard on Saturday. I was wearing a short sleeved shirt and capris. I knew that I wouldn’t get poison ivy if I washed up quickly enough so I hurried and did as much as I could, getting touched with the vines and leaves. What I didn’t consider was the mosquitoes! You can wash all you want but the bites just won’t go away. So I took a quick shower and got away with no poison ivy but landed about 100 bites which are mostly on the backs of my legs.

Well, that’s as close to fitting in a nutshell as I’ll ever get it to be. Pictures will follow later of various things once I get my computer set up.