Ch..ch..ch..chaaanges!

I know I’ve been MIA – apologies – but it has been a crazy-busy couple of weeks with lots of changes. 

First, and probably most importantly, we have pictures of our actual puppy!  

Everyone, meet Kairo:

Our little cutie! 

For those not in the know (though I think most of you are), after years of calling our hypothetical dog Megatron, we have opted for a more suitable male name.  Megaton not a male name you say?  Well, we know we would be shortening the ever-awesome name – Meg-a-tron – that’s three syllables and a little bit lengthy.  And since the obvious nickname is Meg or Megs, which is very feminine, it was back to the drawing board.  Where did Kairo come from you ask?  Cairo was the name of the dog who went in with SEAL Team 6 to kill Osama Bin Laden.  And since we wanted to be just a little bit different, we changed the ‘C’ to a ‘K’ (which was actually G$’s suggestion, not mine). 

In other news, I quit my job!  Again, I think everyone reading this is in the know, so I’ll spare everyone the details.  But no, G$ would not let me quit until I found another, which I will be starting in about a week – on June 1.  I could not be more thrilled about leaving the old project, not working 18+ hour days, and not traveling, but I’m even more excited about the new company, the new opportunities, and yes, I’ll say it change.  Gasp!  I’m usually change-averse, but after four years with the old company, right out of college, I’m excited for something new.  More on this later after I start. 

Lastly (as far as changes go) G$ and I moved last Thursday!  Thankfully, we had movers to the heavy lifting, but we’ve been living in a sea of boxes and unpacking for days now.  Things are coming together!  We had all the boxes in the living room unpacked, only to receive 10 packages from Amazon with puppy stuff.  Typical that very little of their dog stuff is shipped from the same distribution center, so I have a few more boxes to get rid of tonight/tomorrow.   I will leave you with two moving picturse (I need to get better about taking them!).  

G$'s idea of packing.  Yes, everything was just left inside the coffee table and plastic-wrapped!  Since nothing was breakable, it actually worked nicely! 

Our giant mirror.  Still wrapped after arriving in the new apt.

We are leaving for the Outer Banks on Saturday morning with my family and I cannot wait for some relaxation and fun in the sun and sand!  Then on Tuesday, we will have yet another marathon driving session – 5 hours from the beach to the breeder to pick up the puppy (yay!) and then another 5 hours back to DC.  I will be sure to take tons of pictures of our little cutie! 

<3

K$

Puppy Update!

We made a 14 hour marathon drive down to North Carolina on Saturday to visit two breeders.  Both were great, but we liked the “family feel” of one of them more, so we have our breeder:

Roxanne’s Vizslas 

Check out their website: www.roxannesvizslas.com

We got to meet a few of their female dogs (Roxanne, who just had puppies a few weeks ago and Cheyenne, who thought would be the momma of our future puppy) and Max, the male.  We also got to see both a male and female puppy from Roxanne’s litter.  We were so excited!  This was our first time ever seeing and petting a Vizsla in person, and they definitely lived up to our expectations!  They are just so beautiful and well behaved. 

After we got home on Saturday evening, I got a call from the breeder:  Someone had to back out of the one of the puppies from Roxanne’s litter because of a last minute job change, so they had a male puppy available.  Did we want it?  Of course we wanted it!!!  We thought about it, slept on it overnight, and couldn’t come up with a good reason not to get the puppy early.  So on Sunday, I called her back and we are going to be the proud parents of a male puppy in three short weeks!  Now for some pics:

The puppies outside for the first time! 

Could he be our little guy!?

Grass - yum!

Playing outside!

We have a very, very busy upcoming three weeks.  With my brother’s wedding this weekend (can’t wait!), moving the following week (dreading the packing, which we haven’t started!), the beach with my fam for Memorial Day weekend (looking forward to it!), and picking up the new pup on our way back from the Outer Banks (so excited!).  So in addition to packing and unpacking our apartment, we need to brush up on everything puppies and go shopping for the puppy necessities!  Oh, and I have some other news, which I'll share in another post. 

<3
K$

Our First Big Purchase as a Married Couple!

We are moving to a new apartment to get a dog, so it only makes sense to buy a new car for the puppy, right?! :)  You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.  G$ and I bought a Volkswagen Touareg Thursday night!  

Isn't she a beaut!?

Although, getting a new car for the puppy was definitely a perk, it was not the main reason:

1. We wanted to downsize and become a one-car family.  Neither G$ nor I commute to work via car and we really only drive on the weekends, so it really didn’t make sense for us to be paying for parking and insurance on two cars
2. Why not keep either G$’s or my car, you ask?  Well, as much as I love the good ole Mazda Protégé – yes, the same car I had since I was 16 that I drove across the country on the road trip after college [cue nostalgic music] – it was 11 years old and I’d been lucky passing inspection the past two years, and knew my chances of getting lucky again were pretty slim.  As for G$’s car, it was a two door, which let’s be honest would just not work with a puppy.  Plus, his also needed some expensive maintenance done, so it came down to a timing thing, and we figured why not, just do it. 

G$ took point on this one – doing more research than I ever thought he had in him (although, I must say I was disappointed in the lack of spreadsheeting – sorry, G$, but you know how I am with spreadsheets!).  :)  But if it wasn’t for G$’s due diligence and extensive searching, we never would have found our car, nor would we have been able to get such a low mileage vehicle with all the bells and whistles we wanted.  Now onto a funny story about the bells and whistles….

During the research, G$ kept sending me links to cars and I was adamant about two things:

1. Not needing a navigation system – it just didn’t seem necessary since we had our phones
2.  Not liking the brown wood treatment on the gray/black interior

Well let’s just say: our car has both and I love them.

When we got into the car to test drive it (keep in mind, this was my first time ever test driving a car), I tell G$ he can drive first, so I’m sitting in the passenger seat playing with all the gadgets.  The radio was already on and I’m looking at the display, which had six rectangles, each with its own radio station.  I’m looking at it, looking for buttons on the outside of the screen to change the station, only to realize that, yes – it is a touch screen!  I was sold!  Once get back into the dealership and the sales man leaves for a second, I turn to G$ and say, “We need a navigation system!” 

The touch-screen navigation - sweet, huh?!

To our luck – and I say luck, since a lot of the cars in our price range did not have navigation – we were able to get the car for well under what the Kelley Blue Book retail price, so we took it home that night.  No need to threaten – or actually – walk out (which we were prepared to do) to get the price we wanted.  It must have been a slow day!  The dealer was also able to give us a good deal on the trade-in of the Mazda – which I attribute to the fact that I had the University of Virginia sticker on the back of my car – the manager’s (who test drove my car) daughter went to UVA! 

Anyways, we are excited and couldn’t be happier about the purchase.  We got it just in time as we have a few road trips in our future:

1. Trek down to North Carolina next weekend to check out breeders and meet our new puppy’s parents
2. Hour drive to my brother’s wedding (ok, may not count as a road trip, but it is a longer drive than normal!)
3. Family beach trip to the Outer Banks
4. Charlottesville for my cousins wedding

<3

K$