Test 1-2, Test 1-2-3

A few weeks back, G$ and I purchased iPad online and it was finally delivered last week. Some of the issues with two posts ago may have been attributed to trying to use the Blogger site from the iPad Safari. No dice. I recently bought an app, so we'll see how this goes.

Not too much else to say at this point. We got back from Charlottesville a few hours ago. Kairo had a great time with Auntie M and Uncle J. Thank you guys soooooo much for watching him!!

He's now snoozing again on the couch...


We are going to try to kick up the puppy training this upcoming week, so more on that later

<3
K$

Another Set of Puppy First

I'm not sure how the Puppy Firsts entry got posted twice, but the first was the formatted one with the picture.  Apologies. 

One of Kairo's favorite ways to sleep - propped up on or between pillows.  This was especially cute this morning because he almost has bunny ears! :)

Well yesterday was another day of firsts for Mr. Kairo. 

• First trip to the vet and he was a very, very brave boy.  Everything – ears, heart, lungs, boy bits – checked out and he is a healthy pup.  He had another round of shots, which they conveniently package into one shot, which he yelped during the needle prick, but then he got over it like a good little pup.  He now weights 10 pounds, so he's grown about 3 pounds since we picked him up!   
• We have now had Kairo for about a week and half, and let me tell you his nails were getting LONG.  So while at the vet, I got a lesson in how to clip dog claws and Kairo encountered his first of many future times of getting his nails clipped.  Unlike any of my parents’ dogs, his claws are clear, which makes cutting them easy – you cut the white part of the nail, anything pinkish in color indicates that there is blood flow.  Easy peasy, right?  Well we’ll see about that when it’s G$ and I doing it in a week or two.  :)
• Kairo had a little accident in his crate yesterday afternoon, so he was a stinky mess, so once we got back from the vet and G$ got home from work, we drove a few miles away and Kairo had his first experience at PetSmart, so we could buy some puppy shampoo.  Once we got home, we put him in the sink and gave him his first bath, which he was not the biggest fan of.  Oddly, the water in our kitchen sink wouldn’t get above lukewarm, so I think he was cold, and by the end of it a shivering mess.  So I wrapped him up in a towel, then later a blanket, and we snuggled until he warmed up. 

G$ bought Kairo a new toy – which is called a Skineez.  It’s a plus stuffed animal squirrel, minus the stuffing.  The point being so there is no stuffing for a puppy or dog to bite at and pull out.  So far Kairo loves it!  And we love it to, since it’s another toy we can encourage him to chew instead of our arms and hands. 

You can kind of see a little plush squirrel in his mouth

Today will be Kairo’s first night without us (well since we picked him up) but I know he’s going to be fine with Auntie M and Uncle J.  And as I mentioned before, G$ and I are so ecstatic about sleeping in! :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

<3

K$

Puppy Firsts

G$ and I both knew going into this, that getting a puppy wasn't going to be a cakewalk, but I don't think we knew just how much work it was really going to be.  Everyone said, it'll be a nice test run for having children and let me tell you, I have no desire to have a child any time in the near future! :) Kairo has certainly been a pretty good puppy.  He's had his accidents in the house, but of course, after they happen, we can usually look back and say, "Yup, we probably could have prevented this one.  He was playing, so we should have taken him out."  But the challenge if figuring out if he's done playing, or just taking a quick break to grab some water.  And I'll be honest, the fact that it's a five flight walk down the steps, and a block walk to the designated dog potty area, it's a slight deterrent.  But I think he's learning.  We are trying to train him to ring a bell on the door when he has to go out.  For the first week, he was TERRIFIED of the bell.  Whenever we would try to touch his nose or paw to it, he'd squirm and try to get away.  But...we had a breakthrough yesterday and today!  He now wants to eat the bell! :)  Improvement?  I'm going to go with Yes!

Kairo's fav toy - the booda bone!

 

This past weekend was a lot of firsts for Kairo:  

• First barbeque at G$'s parents' house - he had a blast running through all the grassy areas in their backyard and of course loved all the attention.  Later, we also found out that G$'s grandfather was slipping him steak (much to our chagrins).  
• First time being left in his crate.  We had brunch with G$'s family on Sunday morning, so he got his first crate experience.  He was whimpering and whining when we left, and also two hours later when we came home.  Not looking good for Monday, which will be his first day being crated for the day while G$ and I work.  We were afraid he was going to cry the whole time and bug the neighbors, so I went and knocked on the next door neighbors' door, introduced myself, and explained "the situation."  Luckily, they work and no one will be home during the day.  Phew!  
• First softball game!  Our Team Mom, Aunty M (who will also be watching Kairo this weekend while we are at a wedding), was exuberant about getting to watch him during the game.  He was a very, very good boy and actually fell asleep for most of the game.  His cuteness, as it always does, attracts so many people to come over to pet him, but he liked the attention.

Kairo spent the entire softball game snoozin'

• First work day being crated.  Monday morning, I had to go get an ID card at the Pentagon, so I swung home afterwards to check on him before heading into work since G$ would not be able to make it home until early afternoon, I wanted to make sure he had a chance to go potty again.  And to my surprise (and excitement), when I got back to the apartment, Kairo was quiet!!  And only after about an hour.  Apparently, he is a smart puppy and figured out his whining would not get him out of the crate.  G$ comes home for lunch every day to let Kairo out and play with him, which has turned into a little bit of play, with a lot of sleeping on G$'s lap.

Memorial Day Weekend and Puppy Pick Up Day!

G$ and I had a great, relaxing Memorial Day weekend in the Outer Banks with my family.  Like here in DC, it was unseasonable hot down there as well – in the 90s and steamy humid.  The unfortunate part was that the water was ICE COLD so there was no escaping the hotness that was the beach.  My parents rented an ocean front house (thanks Mom and Dad!), so we enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres on the deck listening to the ocean every evening and then grilled a delicious meal.  It was a very low-key, relaxing weekend.  Oh, and did I mention, ice cream every night!?  :)  Sadly, the only pictures I took were at the Wright Brother’s Memorial, and I wont bore you with them.  Now onto the good stuff…

On Tuesday morning, we woke up at 5:20am to head 5 hours west in NC to Roxanne’s Vizslas to pick up our little guy Kairo!  

Our "Going Home" picture

Shortly after getting into the car to head to Virginia!

While picking him up, the breeder mentioned that he slept with her daughter the night before and only woke up once in the middle of the night to tinkle AND that he hadn’t had any accidents in the house yet.  We were ecstatic to hear that!  Naïve…but ecstatic!

Then we got in the car to take him to his new home in Virginia.  Kairo cried/whimpered for the first 30 minutes in the car, sad that we were taking him from the only place he’s ever known as home.  The 30 minutes of noisemaking tired him out, and then he snoozed in G$’s lap for the next hour and half.  We pulled off to a rest stop, which coincidentally had a nice gazebo and a grassy area and he was a very good boy and went potty.  Then it was my turn to hold him, so he snoozed in my lap for the rest of the trip.  At once point, he started whimpering and watching to get outside through the window, so we pulled over to a rest stop and he did his business, then it was back to snoozing the rest of the trip home.

Remember how I said above that we were naïve?  We had our first accident later that evening.  He just squatted in the middle of the living room.  Since then, I think he’s started to figure it out.  However, I did just get back from a two-trip outlining.  Once to tinkle after playtime, to come back up, to have him tinkle again when he got back upstairs.  I think he’s playing games and knows that when he tinkles he gets to go outside.  Not sure if he’s actually that smart.  

He has been pretty good at night.  G$ offered to sleep on the couch with him the past few nights so I could get a good night sleep since I started my new job this week.  Isn't he sweet!?  :)  So G$ and Kairo slept on the couch and it was really the cutest thing - Kairo slept on his head.   

And he really is the most adorable thing. 

Yes, that is a skull and cross bone collar.  G$'s doing, but it's actually grown on me.  Super cute to see this little non-threatening puppy with skull and crossbones on his collar.  I think we call that irony?! :)

G$ took off this whole week to stay home with Kairo.  For the most part he sleeps, plays, goes outside, repeats.  Sometime more trips outside.  More in a later post on potty training a puppy in an apartment.  Phew - it's a challenge.  

I'll try to get more action shots over the weekend.  

<3

K$

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$