Have 3 months really already passed?

Nicknames: Kyra Bug, Bug, Bunny, Fluffy Butt, Butterfly

Clothing Size:  Pretty much all 18 months with just a few 12 months here and there.

Personality:  I can't even describe how much fun you are. Often during the day I catch myself saying aloud your the cutest kid ever!! You make my heart smile watching you learn and laugh.

Things I Could Do Without: The waking up in the middle of the night you have been doing lately. Mommy needs that time to finish homework love.

Item/Toy We Love The Most: Wreck it Ralph!! Still your favorite movie, and nothing calms you down quicker than slipping that in when you are tired or cranky.

Item/Toy You Love The Most: Seems as tho lately you have been playing less with your toys and more with getting into anything you can reach!!

Things I’m Loving Most Right Now: Watching you learn! You are so smart and seem to amaze me everyday with the little things you do. I love when you grab my cellphone and walk around the house having a conversation with imaginary people on it. I can only imagine in 14 years from now when I am writing these when I see you on a cell phone how my thoughts will be the exact opposite.

Things You’re Loving Most Right Now: Playing with your best friend Shade. Its apparent that she is your favorite toy! You even pick up her toys squeak them and throw them for her to bring back!! You often can be found climbing into her kennel with her also just to hang out, or her into your cardboard play house with you!!

What is going on around here.

Alright just as a really quick update on our life...I am writing this after just having written a 3 page response to my Psychology homework. So if I seem a bit formal in my writing that should explain it.

So what do I have going on currently?

Lets start with my Physical goals: I am trying to run a mile 2 times a week and increase not only my time but how much of it I run. This is a simple goal and helps me to de-stress a bit from school, and everyday life. And it takes less than 15 mins of my day. Along this same area I am trying to make sure that I put in an average of around 2 miles a day. This includes walks with the dogs, and Kyra during the day also. Learned my lesson last week tho and will only be walking in sneakers my feet are all sorts of blistered from doing so in other shoes.

Now onto my goals with Kyra and Shade: Kyra and I are working on her using her words. She knows a lot more than she says but has been doing much better about asking for what she wants. Though even though I don't use signs with her for much, she does sign somethings which always gets me pumped up. Starting in September, MAYBE depending on where we are and what is going on, I want to start potty training and hopefully it will go smoothly As far as Shade, she has a long ways to go. She is your run of the mill average puppy and acts accordingly. She needs to be socialized more so I have planned out a dog park visit once a week with her friend Dexter. They both just love the chance to run around and play in the mud. But during the evenings is her big training time. Her and I go on a long walk and work on heel, sit, and stay. She does well until we come across another dog and she looses her focus. Also trying to work on her peeing in the house and chewing on things she shouldn't. My mom just sent a box full of toys for her so hopefully that will help with the chewing thing!!

School and household: I think my biggest challenge in all this is time management. I have never been able to manage my time well and with the invention of Facebook I spend far too much time wasted. I fully intend to get 100s all semester and pass my classes with high remarks. But at the same time I have to make sure I don't just let all the housework go to the way side, as a messy house is not a productive one. Plus I wanna keep coming back and talking with you all!!! So you are gonna get my late night after class ramblings haha!!

So If all of that wasn't enough the army just threw us a nice curve ball, that I intend to hit out of the park. This one leaves Dustin headed on a mission for 6 months in the states at very little notice....which of course means RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of my stinking semester. Which is gonna be a pain in the neck when it comes to term papers and finals. But I know with help from my awesome neighbor and other friends I will be able to pull it off. Him leaving for 6 months also gave me an opportunity to go home for an extended amount of time. And I am so excited to start making the plans soon. The only challenge to this is going to be deciding if I should take a class next semester and if I do which one would be best and will I be able to either take the final while I am stateside or if I will be back in time to take it here?

Adding to the family!!

    I have been eagerly awaiting writing this blog for weeks. I wanted to write it during the process, but than if something somehow would have fallen through I didn't wanna get my hopes up. Not until she was here and safely in our arms!!!

    But after much consideration and discussion, although we still really miss Huck, we decided our family just wasn't whole without a four legged furry friend in it. And since Dustin is allergic to cats, and we really are just dog people, we opted for a dog. What really set it off was meeting our good friend Dawns two pooches who are just so sweet and wonderful with kids. We knew Kyra needed to have a puppy to grow up with like we had.

    So here we are sitting in a foreign country, thinking where do we even begin the process of finding a dog for our family? Buying a purebred was out of the question as we didn't have a thousand or so euro to just throw out there. German pounds wont adopt out to Military (I think military has the reputation of abandoning their pets). So we were in a hard place or either waiting who knows how long for someone who wants to get rid of their dog or to do some research. Well that didn't take long. I saw on my newsfeed some post from two friends about how they were adopting dogs. I had previously pretty much just skimmed past them not thinking much about it, but I went back this time and looked at what they were talking about.

     All they had was great things to say about FAPF (Foundation of Animal Protection in Füzesabony) a no kill foundation from Hungary who finds and saves animals from the street and helps them find new families!! I was really nervous as was Dustin about getting a dog from another country and over the interenet. So we looked into it, found ones we were interested in and started talking to them all the while watching and waiting to see how their adoptions went! Once the first family got their dog and was proof the that place was legit we started the process!!

    At first we originally fell in love with Abigel a little brown Dachshund. She was such a cutie, but we had waited too long and she was already on her journey to her new family. So we sat down the next night looking at the dogs who were still available at the time! And it only took a few mins to see that Shade was going to be the perfect little girl for our family!!! The picture we first saw of us made us fall in love her little ear sticking up and the other one down!!

    All of the people associated with this FAPF have been the most helpful, and caring people ever. Shade first started at a foster house with a few other dogs while they were waiting to see if someone was interested in being her forever home. Once we showed interest, they soon sent her to another foster family. This family had young children so we were able to see how she was going to do with Kyra!! She was so sweet with them. And getting a picture of her daughter holding onto her, and hearing that they were sleeping together at night made me fall even more in love. While she was with them, FAPF got her spayed and she spent a few days with them as she first started to recover until she was ready to be transported. 

    Than she went to her last stop with the drivers until they were able to leave and head to our house. It took them quite a while to get here as it is a long drive from Hungary to here. But the driver was so sweet and he seemed to love her almost as much as we did when he brought her up to us!! I would reccomend anyone living in europe looking for a dog to consider going through FAPF to find yourself a little family member!! They are so amazing!! I have nothing bad to say about them, they were so helpful throughout the whole process. And they really do look out for the well being of the dogs!! 

   Shade arrived to us today and it was love at first sight. I squealed like a little girl when the driver brought her to the door. And she was such a sweet girl giving me kisses right away. Although she was a big skittish with her new surroundings it only took about 30 mins for her to be more relaxed!! Than Kyra woke up from her nap, and Shade was super eager to see what was making the noise in the back room. Kyra was also very excited to find that there was a dog in her house. They were immediate friends. Shade was even rolling around and onto her lap within mins. I can certainly say that they really did find us a perfect match!!! She is house broken and has been here all day with out any accidents, she has been drinking water and now after adding some canned food to the mix has started to eat some food also. She has to wear a cone til we get her stitches out, and than for a couple days after that, but I think she will be fine in no time as her incision seems to be healing quickly!!!

checking each other out!!

Kisses!!

playing right away!!

In her body suit, to keep her from chewing on her stitches

Passed out after a long day of traveling, and our first long walk as a family!!