A Busy New Year!

The last 2 months have flown by in a blur- a blur of yellow fur as Paz zooms by us again! Even though things have been fast paced, these last few months have been awesome!

We were barely over the comfortable warm feelings and fullness Thanksgiving brought when Christmas arrived. The break brought Paz's beloved Kate home for the holidays. Kate spent much of that time catching up on some much needed sleep, and as you can tell from the picture, Paz and Jed (snoozing down on the rug) were happy to keep her company :)

Paz enjoyed all of the festivities and some of the decorations a little too much. We realized pretty fast that our usual Christmas tree in its usual location just wasn't going to work well with Paz around. After watching her carefully take one ornament after another off of a friend's tree (much to the friend's amusement!) Phil and I figured we didn't want to spend the entire holiday policing Paz and the tree! Many discussions later, we decided a very small tabletop tree was in order, along with our stocking and a few strategically placed decorations. I'm very pleased to report that everything but one small (but highly cherished for the memory attached to it) decoration made it through without any trouble. Paz did manage to take a couple of our stockings down and parade around with them; I'm still not sure how she did it without knocking the stocking weights down too. What a clever girl!

Christmas also brought our family a big scare! Our senior dog, Jed (14.5 years) became very ill right before Christmas. He has a whopper of a heart murmur and it went from bad to almost lethal overnight. He spent a few days in ICU at Texas A&M's wonderful Vet School hospital and came home much healthier and happier. His prognosis isn't great- we'll probably only get to enjoy him for 6-12 more months- but right now his new meds have made a huge difference and he has lots more energy than before. Paz and Ding were a little lost without him here; Ding was especially upset! Everyone was much happier when Jed came back home! A great Christmas gift for us all!

Paz really enjoyed trips to the mall and Petsmart for Christmas shopping. She paid no attention to anyone but the mall Santa- something about his outfit grabbed her attention! Paz still dislikes walking close to our Hollister store; the only reason I can think of is the horribly strong perfume that pours out of that place.

On Christmas day, Paz loved the tug of war rope and heavy duty Nylabones that Santa left for her. She literally picked the tug of war rope out herself at Petsmart a few days before Christmas so that one wasn't a big surprise!!! She also had fun running around the house with yards of wrapping paper trailing behind her. She wasn't a big help when it came to cleaning up!

The weather this winter has been exceptionally cold, so we spent much of the week after Christmas inside drinking hot chocolate and watching Paz play outside in the rain and mud. She absolutely LOVED it! Obviously genetics play a huge part in all of this, because she truly had a blast getting filthy dirty in the coldest water she could find. It didn't even phase her! Boy did we get cold and wet cleaning her up!

New Year's was pretty low key- a great meal with friends and family, lots of football games and a few fireworks. We're not big into New Year's resolutions; instead we talked a lot about all of the highs and lows of the past year and things we learned. Here's a short list:

• Having your family close by is awesome
• Being healthy is such a blessing!
• Being employed is a blessing and gift that you have to work hard for
• Planning a wedding is FUN!
• Fostering Paz has been a blast!
• Risking your heart, even when you know it's going to hurt later, is worth it
• You make your own destiny by following your dreams
• We need to take a lot more pictures of Paz before she leaves
• I am not much of a blogger...

And the next day, Paz was gone! Back to Lackland for training and evaluation. Each time she goes, it gets a little harder knowing that in a few more months, she will stay there and start her "real" job. Her evaluation was good! She was comfortable in all of the exercises they put her through, and her toy drive has improved also! This is really good news, even though it also means she'll be leaving us soon.

Now that the holiday rush is over, hopefully I'll be better about posting info and pictures!