PUPPY!!

I've wanted a second rottweiler for a LONG time.  We kept waiting, thinking we'd get Paige a cat first so the puppy would grow up around cats and avoid any problems there.  In (I think) February, we brought a kitten home.  The kids named her Cookiedough Susan.  :)  Unfortunately, half our family started sneezing.  Paige swears SHE is not allergic, but it's wishful thinking that has her convinced it was a coincidence that she started sneezing and her eyes were itchy.  ;)  After a tough weekend of struggling with what to do, we returned Cookiedough Susan.  It was hard on us and on Paige, but with promises of a puppy we got through it. 

Soooo I started talking to our breeder.  Several years ago we went to a show and she had a female with her named Flirt.  I LOVED that girl, and kind of kept my eye on her.  A couple of years later she had a litter and I came across one of the puppy's pictures online.  His name was Pilot and I immediately wanted him.  He was Wendi's pick(the breeder) and not surprisingly, since she's a wizard when it comes to breeding and picking rottweilers, he ended up becoming the number one rottweiler in the country, and was for a few years, before she retired him from conformation this year.  This is Pilot:

 Here is his Westminster picture(haha!)

Anyway, she had two litters in mind for a puppy for us, one was out of Pilot, and the other was out of one of Pilot's sons-Dante.  Dante is a 

handsome fellow too, and apparently has Pilot's awesome personality.

I was pretty tempted to go with the Pilot litter, but for a few reasons we ended up going with the litter of Pilot GRANDbabies.  The parents are Dante and Tessa.  They are both in Northern California, so I haven't met them, but have talked to both owners and seen pictures.

Dante:

 

Tessa, the mama, is also beautiful, with pretty, sweet eyes.  She's big, about 100 pounds.  (Gia is only 75-80 pounds)  I'm told she is very laid-back, calm, and sweet.  Sounds like Gia.

 

The puppies were due in early March, so we had a few months of waiting ahead of us.  Waiting isn't my strong point.  Ha.  The kids and I had a paper chain countdown for our puppy.  We also went back and forth a few times from boy to girl.  We ended up deciding on a girl, and one day in the future we'll get a little boy.  Jess and I flew to San Francisco and met Wendi at a dog show to pick Gia up when she was a puppy.  I looked into doing that again, but it was going to cost a ridiculous amount of money.  I was nervous about it, but we ended up having her flown to Vegas, and Tyra, Paige, and I picked her up on May 9th.  We were so excited!  

The night before we took the kids to the store to get things we needed-a crate and food of course, but also lots of toys.  They were VERY cute about choosing the perfect toys.

We went to Cason's baseball game in the morning and Tyra, Paige and I left from there.  When we got there, she was in her little kennel, and thankfully looked perfectly calm and happy.  No sign of her having been stressed out on the flight.

She was so good for the drive.

Paige and I fought over holding her, and Tyra drove us home.

 

She really liked the bunny we got her.

We made a few stops in Vegas, and Jess kept texting us to hurry up and get home.  Ha!  They were so excited to meet her.  

 

 This is blurry but I love Reed's face.

Gia was so happy to meet her, wagging her nub of a tail, and frolicking around in the grass with her.

She was less excited the next day when she realized the puppy was staying, and that sometimes she'd want to play whether or not Gia was in the mood.  Ha.  Gia had barked only a handful of times in her life prior to us bringing the puppy home, and now she barks that many times a day, in annoyance at her new sister.  :)  She loves her though, and is very patient with her.  They even play once in a while, but it never lasts long, since Gia is a tired old lady.  

I saw the sun rise more in the first couple of weeks of having her than I had in all my life before, combined.  Ha.  

That's okay-she's a cute little early bird.

We named her Mavis.  You can tell it's one of those names people either love or hate.  (or apparently have never heard before).  I've loved the name since I was like 8 years old, and learned to type with a computer program my dad had, called Mavis Beacon teaches typing.  (85 wpm at like 9 years old, not to brag.  Haha!) My love for the name was rekindled when Hotel Transylvania came out.  The kids were happy about the name for that reason.  So I guess she's sort of named after Dracula's daughter.  :)  It seems appropriate, now that we know her.  I call her my fruit bat sometimes.

If you haven't seen the movie, Mavis turns into a bat sometimes.  OUR Mavis also has a sort of bat shaped marking on her bootie.  :)

Mavis got sick a few days after we got her and I was pretty scared it was parvo.  Thankfully after fluids and antibiotics she was feeling MUCH better a day later. 

We had a hard couple of weeks with all the puppy biting, and the kids pretty much lived perched on top of the couch where she couldn't reach them.  Thank goodness that is mostly gone and she's overall a very calm puppy.  Just has a couple of bouts of craziness a day and occasionally forgets the rules.  :)

 Reed is hilarious with her.  The other kids squeal and run when she gets like that, which is exactly the opposite of what they should do.  Reed tells her "NO" or "Uhuh" and then freezes, holding perfectly still so she gets bored, and looking away from her so she learns it won't get her any attention.  He loves her, and calls her "May-muh" and sometimes "May May" which a lot of us seem do now too.  He also calls her "good guh" like Gia.  Gia still gets plenty of his attention, especially when Mavis is in an obnoxious mood.  

He gets frustrated when he tries to play with her toys and she thinks it's tug-of-war time. 

Mavis is a good girl like Gia.

She loves belly rubs.

...naps...

...car rides...

...and Gia.

 

One of my favorite things about rottweilers is how attached they are to their people.  They're really confident and stable, not the type to get anxious about separation, but if you're around, they want to be near you.   Mavis has proven to be typical in that way.  If I'm cooking or doing dishes she sleeps on the kitchen floor.  If I move to a different room she follows and plops down nearby.  If we're at the table, she's under it.

She goes somewhere with us just about every day.  We've been teased about that, but it's actually really important, especially with dogs like rottweilers that people are afraid of.  There are certain windows when you NEED to socialize them with different people and animals, and just get them used to weird things so they won't freak out as adults when they come across something new and different.  Some days it's her puppy class so she gets to be around other puppies and people.  Other days it's just a ride through a drive-thru with us, or the carwash.  She thought that was weird, but didn't mind, especially after getting lots of treats.  :)

She has a great personality, sweet and playful but overall calm(verging on lazy).  We love her.  She's growing so fast.  Her puppy breath and a lot of her super soft puppy coat are gone already.  :(  She weighs about as much as Reed does now, and it won't be long before she's bigger than all of them. 

Waterfalls, Portland, and Home

As I started writing this post, I realized I called the falls in the last post, Horsetail Falls.  That was wrong, the ones we saw just before Cascade Locks were actually at a place called Starvation Creek.  I fixed that last post now.  Anyway, in the morning we had a quick breakfast at a little restaurant next to our hotel, and headed toward Portland.  

First we made a quick stop at Horsetail Falls(the real one).  It was beautiful and they had built these stone walls and stairs down to where the falls were. 

 

 

  

We left after enjoying it for a bit, and headed for Multnomah Falls.  These were also beautiful, but much more crowded of course, which isn't my favorite thing.  Ha.  We hiked up a bit though, and thankfully Reed was happy to ride in the hiking pack, because it would have been stressful on the steep, very crowded paths, if he'd wanted to walk on his own.

 It was pretty amazing.

 They had a bunch of search and rescue dogs there for people to meet, which I would've liked to do, if not for the crowds.  So we admired the cute dogs, including a rottweiler puppy who was in training, from afar.  Then I went into the gift shop, stressed for a while about what souvenirs to get for the kids, and gave up and left with nothing.  I regretted that immediately though.  Ha.  

We only had a few more hours before needing to be at the airport, so we headed for Portland.  We wanted one more good meal, and my dad and Trudi had recommended a place called Island Cafe.  We found it and were very glad we did.  It was a cool little place down at the dock, and you could eat inside OR out on the water.  

It was nice out so we ate outside. 

One thing I wanted to do was try some seafood during the trip.  I am not a big fish eater, but I want to teach myself to be, so I figured this was a good time to try some.  I got the tacos with Alaskan Halibut and jalapeno ranch, and came with chips and mango salsa. It was all SOOOOO good.  Jess had fish and chips and loved his too.  I just mentioned this to Jess while typing this and he said "It was delicious.  I want it right now."  Me too.  I could eat that every day.  It was fried in a beer batter so not the healthiest way to have fish, but whatever.  Ha.  

Last on my list was Blue Star Donuts.  While planning the trip I came across two Donut places to try.  The other was Voodoo Donuts, which was the touristy place, but from looking it up, and talking to a couple of people, it sounded like Blue Star Donuts were actually better.  Voodoo makes funky ones, decorated in funny ways and all, and apparently you can wait for hours.  So we went for Blue Star, and it was awesome.  I felt pressured to decide quickly, and picked a basic cinnamon sugar donut, which was fine but didn't blow my mind.  Jess was the smart one here though, and picked a Blueberry Bourbon Basil donut.  It was one of the best things I have ever tasted.  He thought so too.  I felt bad because he ended up sharing.  I should have chosen the same thing.

Reed thought he was cool in Portland again.  :)

Pretty soon it was time to head for the airport.  Reed was adorable, wearing his little backpack.

Until he suddenly had had enough traveling, and screamed his head off in the airport as we got to our gate.  It was full-on tantrum screaming, writhing around in my arms and hitting the highest, screechiest pitch possible.  Everyone was turning to stare, so I took him to the next gate, so everyone we would be flying with wouldn't hate us immediately.  We sat down and he calmed down pretty quickly, thank goodness. I was getting PRETTY nervous about the flight home.  He started being his sweet self though.  

When our flight boarded, he was calm, and we got the Kindle out with one of his shows.  He was so sleepy and I was sure he'd fall asleep any second, but he just kept watching his shows, playing, and looking out the window.  He stayed perfectly happy the whole time, thank goodness. 

JUST as we started the descent into Las Vegas, he decided it was naptime.  :)

We had such a good trip, and thankfully my dad and Trudi took great care of our big kids, so we didn't have to worry about them, as much as we missed them.  They even got an awful stomach bug, starting the very day we left, and Grampa and Grama Trudi had to deal with all that goes with that, on top of getting them to baseball/softball games when they were healthy enough to play.  

We missed them lots and were so glad to come home to them.  Aunt TT took care of them on Sunday, until we got home around 8:30 or 9 pm.  We thought Reed would be SO excited to see them, but when they rushed him at the door, he acted like he'd seen them minutes before, and seemed annoyed when they surrounded him.  Ha!  Pretty soon he seemed to realize, and was running around playing with them, clearly SO happy to be home. 

Starvation Creek and Cascade Locks

Soon after our little rest stop we pulled up to a trailhead at Starvation Creek.

This was a beautiful spot, and we had a nice hike.  

 

 

Reed rode in the pack while we explored the falls, but as soon as we started the actual hike (you got to the falls within a minute of the beginning of the hike, and then the trails continued for quite a while) he wanted to be big and walk.

 

 

 

 

 The ride from there to Cascade Locks wasn't long, and we got checked into our hotel room, and talked about how we wanted to spend our evening.

 We decided to go across the river into Stevenson for dinner, so we can now say we've been to Washington.  Ha!  We crossed the Bridge of the Gods (this bridge stars in Twilight fyi, haha!)

 

 Stevenson was tiny, but had a cute downtown.  We walked to what turned out to be a nice restaurant, and had a good dinner. 

 Definitely saw a Steve Urkel doll skateboarding up on this ledge.

 

 After we ate we drove through the mountains nearby.

  

Then we crossed back over the river to Cascade Locks.

We drove around the neighborhoods for a while.  Didn't take long, because there are about 1200 people living in Cascade Locks.

Then we stopped and let Reed play at the cutest park on the planet, set between the road and the river.  

 

 

 

We were there for the perfect time, the sun was going down and it was nice and cool.

 Even better, it was just us.

 Once it got dark we headed to our hotel room for the last night in Oregon.