Life has changed a little bit over the last month and despite a few less hours of sleep, my heart is filled with a little bit more love. To give a little bit of a back story, over the past three years about every three to four months J would mention how great it would be to have a dog. We’d be cooking dinner and he’d say, wouldn’t it be fun to have a dog just laying in the back room keeping us company? Or if we’d go out to a vineyard or any place with open land he’d make a similar sentiment. I always had an excuse. We had some trip coming up or I wanted to enjoy our new furniture without teeth marks or scratches. And although those were legitimate concerns of mine, there was also another big reason and that reason was that we had decided to start trying to expand our family. (A puppy and a baby is a lot to handle.) But the fact is we’ve been trying to expand our family for well over a year… over a year without success.
It’s been a long year + of ups and down and feelings of hope and hopelessness. We’ve both been poked and prodded and yet none of the doctors we’ve met with can explain why we’re having difficulty. It’s been exhausting. And even more exhausting that for some reason it feels embarrassing, it’s a topic that no one discusses, and when you do bring it up, I hear “well at least you’ve got time on your side.”
We’ve tried to stay positive and distract ourselves with vacations, work, a kitchen renovation, and even a deployment– but every month we’re reminded and every month the house seemed to get a little quieter.
So it finally seemed like there was no better time to expand our family and hearts in a different way. After reaching out to a few different breeders, we came across Florence. Florence not only had the cutest little face, her name was on our “list” anyway since it’s J’s hometown, so it seemed like it was meant to be.
We traveled up to meet her, and when her siblings went off to play in the yard, Florence came over to meet us. She’s brought in a little bit more noise to our house, a lot more joy, and one day– hopefully in the not too distant future– she’ll make a great big [fur] sister.
So meet Florence. (Also known as Flo, Flor, Flo-Flo, munchkin, babes,.. and the list of names go on.) She’s a red mini-goldendoodle (F1B) who loves nothing more than to cuddle and chew on the corners of anything she can find. We’re expecting her to be about 25-30 lbs and a medium sized dog, but for now we’re loving her puppy stage and soaking in every puppy kiss she gives!
{kitchen design sketch}
