Talula Has Left Us......

When we moved to NC back in 2005 we were determined to settle in and get a dog. We had decided to get a Bernese Mountain Dog and after much hunting drove to Washington DC to pick up Talula. She was the CUTEST puppy we had ever seen..........

We took her everywhere with us. Days at the park, long walks, trips to friends. She became part of our family....

We were not great dog trainers so Talula quickly realized she could be very spoiled and get away with pretty much anything. But she was sweet and cute so we didn't care....

She made the Christmas card of 2005.....

She grew into a beautiful adult dog and we loved taking her for walks in our neighborhood. Everyone would stop and ask us what kind of dog she was and comment on how beautiful she was. She was horrible to potty train, not extremely bright, chewed anything and everything but she was our dog and we loved her....

And then comes baby. She was great with our kids from the beginning. She had a sense to be gentle and never got upset with Emma or Johnny messing with her. She didn't even seem to mind being neglected once the kids came. She went from number one, to number two, to a very last number 3 on our priority list once the kids came around. Every mom I talk to with a dog can attest to how hard it is to manage a dog and small kids and give the dog the attention that they need and deserve. Talula became a second thought instead of our first. She got more attention from the kids but less attention from us. But she went with it and blended into the background of our lives.

As I sit here and write this it is so strange to not here the jangling of Talula's collar as she wanders around the house, looking for toilet paper or maybe a scrap of paper Emma left on the floor to devour. It felt strange to leave the house today without putting Talula behind her gate. It was completely foreign to have someone stop by our house and not have to pull Talula away from the door as she tried to greet our visitor. When it started raining I went to the back door out of habit to let her in only to find myself standing there, tearing up that she wasn't there to let in. I will have to admit, I was the first in our family to say that Talula was a nuisance, too much of a burden for me to care for once we had kids. I had many conversations with John about finding her a new home (this was normally after she had peed in the house or chewed up her 400th sock) to which John would say absolutely not. But, she has left a void in our house. Her death seems so sudden......maybe I wasn't so ready to be dogless. She was a good dog; part of our family, part of our life here in North Carolina and we all loved her very much. We are so sad that we had to say goodbye.......

Big News!!

I am going to interrupt my blog catching up to give everyone our big news.....

John accepted a position as a professor at Stanford and we are moving to California!!

We are so proud of him and how hard he worked to get here and excited for what lies ahead for our family. We are, of course, also very sad to be leaving our good friends, beautiful neighborhood and home, and southern cooking but we have been here for six years, John has gotten his degree, and it is time....

We won't be moving until sometime during the middle of the summer but are now in the scramble to get our house on the market. We are praying it sells quickly so that we can focus on moving and finding a place to live in the San Francisco area. I hear the trolly bells, beach and wine country calling....wanna come visit?

Spring Break Fun

Each year John has had a spring break of teaching and has had to commit this time to working on his dissertation. Now that he is done with school, we can finally begin to enjoy his spring breaks! This year we decided to go local. We went to the zoo.....

I think the tram was a highlight for all......

And the next day we went to the science center in Durham. They had a great butterfly exhibit. Emma really wanted a butterfly to land on her. At first, Johnny ran up ahead with his usual no fear attitude. Suddenly he saw a huge butterfly trying to land on him and completely freaked out. He stayed much closer to us after that.....
Emma got to hold her butterfly......

Johnny still not sure why we are letting bugs fly on us.....

Train ride through the Dinosaur forest...

It was a lot of fun and a good preview for fun spring breaks to come.....

Kick, Kick, Kick.......

Emma is playing soccer this spring. She has loved her dance class so much so we decided that we would see how she liked playing a sport with a ball and team. She loved "dressing up" in her outfit for the game...

It is set up as a practice/game so most of the time the kids are just running around with their balls. For any of you that know Johnny well, you can imagine that him having to watch people play with balls without him was not an easy reality for him......
We finally had to break it to him that he was not going to be able to stay on the field....

I think Emma might like the water breaks the best.......

The kids do drills and practice for the first 45 minutes and then try to play a game for the last 15 minutes. Once the game starts there are those couple of kids that can dribble and take the ball from the other kids. Within minutes one of her teammates is sitting on the ground crying and the rest of them are pretty much wandering around the field deciding if it is worth running or if they should just pick some grass. You spend the first years of a childs life trying to convince them that they should share, be polite, not steal toys from others, take turns. Then you try to teach them how to play a sport and you hear yourself saying, "steal the ball" and "be aggressive" and "kick the ball at the goalie". Hmmmm.....no wonder these little kids run around the field confused....

March Happenings

I haven't been very good about keeping up the blog lately so thought I would post a few photo's from the last month......

Here is us at an Elon University (where John works) basketball game. Johnny LOVED watching all the balls bounce around the gym. Emma loved watching the cheerleaders.

We also got to spend some time at a children's museum and a science center.....

And my attempt to braid Johnny's hair....it took me about a half hour and a lot of candy to keep him as still as possible....
This only lasted one day so don't think I will be doing this very often....