the new roof over our heads

we are in! to our new place, that is. not to jobs or graduate school, but those things will come. we do hope they will come soon, but surely in due time.

we have been spending most of our time entertaining harvey and he is quickly learning the way this puppy-hood thing works--as are we. it is certainly a full-time gig to be a puppy keeper, but the rewards and joys are worth the "investments".

the herding instinct of our little shepherd astounds me. it truly is instinctual for him. his most favorite things to herd at this time: our exercise ball/computer chair and rolling firewood logs. i guess we may have to invest in some sheep to keep him busy. a joke. believe me, that was a joke. there shall be no sheep. yet. maybe some fainting goats...

anyhow, harvey is quickly growing, so here are a few recent shots:if you hear of any good jobs for brandon or i, please let us know. we are quite desperate and needing to fund our rent and food bills. speaking of rent, here are some photos of our new place:

pray for healing

my dear, wonderful friend laura's brother and his girlfriend were assaulted in ecuador last week. her brother, britt, was stabbed 18 times and is now going in and out of consciousness. he is currently back in the states and being taken care of at the hospital that their sister, amber, works at in southern california.
there are a lot more details here, but i just needed to get this out there and get people praying for his healing. please also pray for his girlfriend who was raped. there is reason to believe that britt was trying to stop the assault on his girlfriend when he was stabbed.

the oldest of my youngest

back in september the oldest of my younger siblings turned 18, which you may recall from this post. ross is just an awesome guy and i am really proud of him.

anyhow, his senior photos were taken by the folks who took our wedding pics--kyle and kacie stott of stotts shots photography. they are an amazing couple with true artistic talent.

click here to see all rossco's pics.

and we shall call him...

HARVEY!

he's officially in the family now and we are all adjusting quite well. we picked him up on monday and had a very successful drive home. he slept on our laps as we cruised and then he got out and went potty each time we stopped. day 1 was full of lots of looks like this one, full of suspicion and mistrust:before we picked him up we were leaning towards "harvey" as his name but both agreed that we couldn't decide until we met him. when we met his foster parents (he was a rescue dog) they told us that they had been calling him "harley" so it was decided--harvey was an easy switch and seemed to be just right. it suits him well and he is hearing it often.
he is very well-behaved so far, even grandpa stan agreed, so that is saying something. :) he sleeps way more than we anticipated, but we certainly aren't complaining. the first night he hated his crate and whined the whole night, but we made significant improvements yesterday and he was quiet as a churchmouse last night.
he has already brought out a crazy, mothering, protecting side of me. the neighbors corgi met him for the first time this morning and unprovoked he just dove for his neck and was going crazy. little harvey was scared to death and cried out. i couldn't believe this other dog--he was into vicous, angry, out-for-blood mode. i pried him off of my little guy before he did too much damage. becky had said before that she didn't really like this corgi and now i see why!

here he is with rodney and papa.

getting snippy

what with us searching for jobs, a house, and having recently adopted a new puppy, it seems only suiting that i would plunge into another big change.

i've had long hair for a long time and thanks to an old friend and a brave hairstylist, i no longer do. out with the long, drab, hippy hair and in with the new, chic, bob. here is the photographic evidence of the big change. some of you may think, "who cares about a little haircut?" well, when it comes to big hair changes i have always been a little timid, so this is a big deal to me!

i really like it, although i haven't styled it yet, so that may change my feelings drastically. it should go well with my job at the hospital, don't you think? speaking of that, my interview went really well. they seemed to feel bad that they couldn't give me enough work, but hopefully that doesn't deter them from hiring.

expanding family

we have arrived in central oregon and are beginning the daunting tasks of finding jobs, finding a place to live, and... finding a puppy! we have so far only accomplished one of these tasks, and depending on who you talk to, it was perhaps the most important of the three! in a couple weeks we get to bring home this little guy:he is an australian shepherd mix and is about six weeks old right now. we can pick him up in two weeks and we are thrilled beyond belief. we have had a couple of heartbreaks in the dog realm in the past month and now we are finally getting to expand our family with the right little guy.

here's what we need from our friends and family: name suggestions! please give us some in the comments section because although we have a couple of ideas rattling around in our heads, we know you all can come up with more! our criteria: no more than two syllables and easy to yell (yes, we expect you to practice yelling the name before you suggest it!). you are all probably saying that we shouldn't have to yell at the dog ever, but let's be honest it will happen at some point and we don't want to find ourselves yelling a ridiculous name!

in other news, i have an interview at the hospital on tuesday. this is a job i really want, and one that would help with getting into graduate school, so hopefully i will have good news to report on that soon.