We've had a chance to unpack a few things and a few rooms are ready for your viewing pleasure...

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are officially moved in.  Almost... We have a few things to pick up and clean up before we're officially officially done being Arlington residents.  I wasn't really going to blog about moving day except for the fact that so much of moving day is blog worthy.  Ups and downs and junk in the moving day solidified the reason why we were leaving the area.

I can be extremely organized... Organized to the point of over the top organizer.  I've moved 3 times (now 4) and all previous moves I was neuroticly living out of boxes the last month wherever I was.... This place?  I was soooo lazy.  Adam and I were boxing things up and throwing things in garbage/paper bags the night before the move.  Adam created the idear of garbage 'space' bags by using said garbage bag and said vaccum.  Evidence below.

 

We were shocked at how much stuff we had to pack, so the space bag idea was great!

 

We were even more amazed at how well our home-made space bags worked.

 

Pearl was shocked at the size change of the bags too.

 

 

Taking out all the air in the bag we felt as if the bags were ready for space, however not for rubbermaid.

 

So early and so ready to move the space bags.

 

 

We woke up bright and early and super organized Sarah would have been loading boxes on the loading dock at 5am if she had her way.  Adam didn't like the idea of all of our worldy, or domestic belongings hanging out on the open loading dock.  He scheduled us for our building's loading dock from 12-3pm.  We thought this was a good time frame because a couple friends of ours that were helping had a morning marathon and it gave them time to come over to help. 

We decided to trek over to the moving truck facility and pick up our truck an hour before our scheduled loading time.  Our truck?  Massive.  We accidently ordered the largest truck available... After waiting a half an hour we finally got our truck.  Anyone who thinks someone without a 'commercial' license is capable of driving a 26 foot moving truck through DC is really crazy.  Adam and I have never had more anxiety and sweat while driving through little DC streets trying to get this truck to the condo... And this was sweating anxiety before we even got to moving!!! 

 

The truck couldn't even fit in the camera...

 

In the middle of the photo you'll see a big yellow square about 6" below the light... That's our little truck.

 

We got to our condo building and drove around to the back to see a moving truck sitting in our loading dock.  I looked at the clock and it was 12:03... Not good.  Adam and I were already on edge as it were, and he was going to go to the front desk with arms blazing demanding the truck move.  I was scared this would backfire, so I attempted to go in there with honey rather vinegar... I should have used vinegar.  The front desk woman (who I had never seen before) tried to tell me that the current person moving in was scheduled 9-1 and then again from 3-7 which makes absolutely no sense to our being scheduled for 2 hours?  I waited for the front desk woman to work with us and her best idea was for us to wait until 1:00 and if the movers were still there she'd tell us to basically move their truck away.  I thought this was ridiculous so I asked her to call building management as I saw the building manager's car parked right next to our moving truck.  The front desk girl said that management wasn't here.  I told her I found that hard to believe since I saw the manager's car parked there, fruthermore management needs to be on site on the weekend for instances such as this.  The woman basically told me the best thing I could do is wait.  I went upstairs and by this time our friends had arrived.  I felt awful making them wait as they had alredy had a busy morning...

So 1:00 rolls through and we hear nothing.  Adam decides to take things into this own hands and we didn't hear anything from him for a half an hour.  We weren't sure what to do but decided to wait it out.  Adam went down to the front desk at 1:00 and told the front desk lady that the other movers were still there.  She told Adam to go to the mover's floor and demand the elevator key and basically steal the elevator/loading dock... Adam went up to the movers' floor and demanded the movers give him the elevator key.  They said they didn't have it.  Then he spoke to the owner of the unit demanding the key.  The owner/woman was literally making the movers unload a box off the elvator, unpack it, and then put the item where she deemened appropiate... That's why it was taking forever for her movers to move.  The woman who was so adamant about her 1:00 time was shocked Adam came to her demanding the key.  She said she didn't have it, so he went to the movers again and demanded it from them, who had it in their pocket.  Finally they gave him the key.  Unfortunately their truck was still parked at the dock. 

We started to move things down to the dock when we noticed them backing their truck out and purposely blocking our truck from the dock.  I seriously was about to call the police... Not like 911 emergency call, but I have Arlington County 'non emergency' phone number on speed dial.  We seriously needed a mediator in this situation and our management clearly was incompacitated and unable to assist us.

We moved a few loads downstairs and the truck finally left.  By the time we got moving it was 2:00pm.  We didn't get done loading our truck until 5:00pm...and didn't get out to paradise until 6:00pm.  We got flack from residents in our building for not hiring movers.  They labeled us 'blue collar' and also gave us nasty, pompous glares all day.  Again - this solidified the very core of why we left. I am so grateful for  great, authentic friends who stood by us in the midst of the chaos of the day and helped us.

It took us almost 4 hours to move things out of the condo and less than an hour to get them into our little cottage.  We were so exhausted we woke up bright and early just so we could take the truck back and get our little civic... We never missed our little compact car soooo much!  After we got home, we did absolutely nothing all day until...

 

Adam filling up the two gas tanks... Diesel.  Kaching $$$

 

Pearl and I were watching...

Pearl's future furry brother/sister has got to be white for the sake of photos.

 

 

More to come...

Hello one and all!  Adam and I have encountered fun times for being home owners for a couple weeks.  We have well water and for those of you who have it know there's a smell associated with it.  I was pretty easygoing with this whole house but the one thing I did demand was a new water filtration system.  Adam asked his coworker (who lives near our new place) about the filtration systems and the guy told him it would be $2,000.  I thought this was OK and so that's what I budgeted for.  We closed on our house on Wednesday and the following Saturday we had this company come out to give us the shibang about water.  An hour into it I got squirmy and joked that we're ready to take whatever but I did not take into account the salesman's extensive sales pitch.  Finally he brought out his calculator... The fact he brought out a calculator got me squirmy again but for bad reasons.  He started to say words like 'this will be $3098' and 'this is going to run $3295' and finally 'this is $2900'.  I about cried.  He said everything we 'needed' would run us $7,500!  Grr to the max!  I definately did not budget that much just for water.  I was soooo discouraged.  The salesman said that we could finance it, but I wasn't really sold on that either, so we've decided to either a) get used to the smell or b) buy the whole system piece by pieec as we can comfortably afford it.

On a lighter note, we've gotten painting done in all rooms except the laundry room (which dear Adam doesn't believe needs to be painted).  He's not exactly sold on my vertical white/yellow stripes... He likes the idea of the finished look but he doesn't want to have to measure and put up painters tape.

 

Here's some before/after shots of our hall and living room all painted pertilly. :)

 

Before... and After with our jute rug.  You really can't tell a difference in color but there is one.  The before in the hall was really off whitish - almost gray toned white.  I'm not sure why the camera did not see this like this but the new color is called 'cracked wheat.'

We did a shade darker in the hall than in the living room.

 

Another before angle of our hall.. I loved this room so much, it's what made me want to get this place.

 

Here's an after shot of our living room looking in from the kitchen.

  The paint color is called 'popcorn ball.' 

 

The after of our hall looking into our bedroom/living room from the guest room.

 

Living room after.

 

So hola! I'm sending a photo update of our little house.  There are more photos of our home in prior blog posts on the second page, but for all you wonderers... Enjoy!  We took this pic right after closing on it and making the trek out to our bungalow from DC.

 

 

Here's a photo of the living room front door when the house was on the market... I loved the duck lamp.

 

 

 

I took so many photos of the kitchen for reasons of this huge fridge... Now that it's mine it's growing on me a little bit.

 

 

 

We had chairs-in-a-bag/outdoor tables left in our trunk from tailgating back in November.  Instant living room furniture.

 

 

Another picture of our kitchen... Trying to figure out this fridge.

 

 

This is the pizza we got with our realtor whilst our keys were locked in our car for 2 hours after closing. 

Yes there are also puppy treats for the diva furry baby.

 

 

 

 

We were so pumped after closing, we went straight to home depot and bought paint for almost every room. 

I've never had a house to paint, so this was a big moment for me. 

 You will see all of our colors are from an easter basket of lovelyness.  This celery green is for the guest room.

 

 

I really am a pink girl however I felt the need to bridge the gap of gender specific colors and went for a 'blue' for our master bedroom.  This was a huge step for those of you who know my pink fetish.  You will see in further pictures that this turned out to be a nice tiffany blue...

Aww I could use some Tiffany jewels to go with my wall color.  Hint hint.

 

 

Oh my little kitchen.  As you all know Adam is the breadwinner in the kitchenness, however  I feel it is my need to make the kitchen as fabulous as ever.  My whole vision for our little bungalow is cottage living.  Don't be frightened by our choice of 'apricot' for our kitchen walls.  Adam suggested it and I hands down agreed it was a fabulous, yummy color for our kitchen.  We were so excited to get our paint we had to slop a little on all the walls.

You will see the finished product of my vintage/cottage kitchen and go 'ahhhh' and nod in agreement at my choices.

 

 

I'm not sure how you all feel about my tiffany light but  I absolutely love it.  I know I know I've gotten the TGI Fridays comments of where am I going to hang the paddle/soccer trophy on the wall but seriously it's cute and it goes with my vision.  Naysayers - Hold tight I say!

 

 

So we came back this Saturday to complete our work and spend our first night in our first home!  We (I) had this vision that we'd paint all 6 rooms.  Easy peasy right?  Well we had to clean the house.... Clean a house that hadn't been scrubbed ceiling to floor in 2 years!  On top of that we have well water and we had a 'water guy' come out to assess the countryness of the water and get us up to speed and into 2009 with an updated filtration system.  Hours and hours later, and money and money later we finished painting the celery guest room. 

Although we were exhausted we pressed on to the Tiffany blue master bedroom.

 

 

Again, you might be blown away by my color selection but I have a vision and tiffany blue is part of it.  Blue blue bright blue it is.  It really is cheery after looking at beige walls for...ever!  After we painted this room we decided it was sleep time.

 

 

Pearl was a fabulous little angel in all of this.  We gave her a chewy new bone (she's puked up every day since) and she was ready for bed too!

 

 

 

Adam said all of our stuff spread out in the living room made us look like... squatters.

 

 

 

Squatters' master bedroom (this is our office and we're going to keep this room white for right now).

So we tried to sleep in our little paradise.  I must remind you of where we're coming.  We live in Washington, DC across from a bus lot, next to the train rails/Metro Airport.  Needless to say it's constant noise - white noise.  Our new home?  Silent.  Eary, scary silence.  We heard our heat click on and I about jumped 3 feet I was so scared.  The whole point of us moving out of the city was for peace and quiet.  Maybe it's too quiet?  On top of the scurrdness that was me we had a little issue with our sleeping arrangement.  We went camping at Shenendoah a couple months ago and we had a good but freezing time.  Our air mattress kept leaking air.  I was so tired/exhausted that I blamed the leak on the cold. It was freezing!  I forgot about the leak.  Fast forward to our 'silent' sleep time -  we start to leak.  Major leak.  I would have been more comfortable laying straight on the wood floor and not this horribleness.  I was seriously ready to just drive home.  Adam turned to me and said, "I'm tempted to drive home."  I said that I couldn't agree more.  So we packed up all of our stuff and ran out of there like someone spooked us.  We complain about our bed all the time but that night it was the most beautiful, comfortable thing ever.  It was like sleeping on a cloud!

 

 

When we woke up Adam asked if it was OK if we just sat and vedged and watched TV.  I thought that was a phenominal idea.  30 minutes into our tv viewingness I started to think.  We had saved our nickels and dimes for a year and had to sit and vedge for a year dreaming about our house.  The last thing I wanted to do was sit and vedge and dream about our house.  We have our house!  I think I coerced Adam to go back to the house.  I asked him if we could pack up everything in our storage unit since we were going back out there.  He coerced me to not pack up anything and just go.  Win Win. 

Above is the before of our little spicy kitchen getting ready for its spa day.

 

 

This is us 3/4 done.  We were so exhausted from the previous day's work that we were seriously contemplating just stopping here and going home.

 

 

We drudged on and completed all the knicks and corners of our little cottage kitchen and knew it was time to rest.

 

 

By day two Pearl was as exhausted as we were.  She had an upset tummy and she was locked out of the kitchen crying, growling, and barking at us to let her in with us.  She was so ready to go and so were we... until we got home.  All we did was think about our home again!  Until next weekend, America!

So I didn't want to blog until things were for certain for certain!  We got our house!!!  We had a couple hiccups along the way but nothing major at all!!!

Adam and I were so excited to go to settlement we locked our keys in our car... for two hours!  Thankfully we were in fabulous Georgetown so we got to stare at the fabulousity of the area and go to lunch with our realtor, who by the way was phenominal.  I don't care if you're in Iowa or the East Coast I'd recommend her in a heart beat!  After we got our doors unlocked we decided to get our furry baby and go to home depot and buy paint.  I just picked out colors I thought would be fab for our cottage by the bay.  Looking at them all together it looks like an easter basket.  They're all pastel colors. :-)  Yay!  We were so pumped we drove to our new house (an hour from where we live now) and started painting away... Until we realized how late it was and we had to drive back intoWashington, DC to go to sleep.  We're holed up in our lease until the end of March which gives us a nice month cushion to get everything packed and moved.  We are just so proud that we did this all on our little owns and are truly grown ups now!  PS, when people talk about how you sign your life away at settlement I thought it was just talk.. No, we really did.  It's fine though.  We're so happy now and ready for what the future brings us!

Adam and I have been getting ourselves prepared for our Landord to put our place on the market... We're freaking out about our place being spotless and perfect because we're the first tenants to live in this brand new building.  Well, it was brand new 2 years ago.  We got up at 7am and began ultra-cleaning.  Srubbing walls and baseboards.  We took down all of our photos and knick-knacks because we're trying to de-personalize the place.     Before we even started ultra-cleaning I put on the hairstylist cap and cut Adam's hair and groomed Pearl... I did all of that before 9am!  After taking down all photos Adam spackled the nail holes and he even did touch-up paint.  We're so exhausted.  Our place feels so sterile and not like ours, tear, but it's getting us psyched up about our future elsewhere.  We don't have any news about the house we want.  We have a couple more inspections next week, so we'll see what happens.

We went to Inauguration of Barack Obama today and we are exhausted!!!  All of our friends around here told us they'd prefer to see Obama on their TV's.  This is such a moment in history!  Regardless of the 2 million or so people there is NO excuse for us not to be there and witness this.  Coming into DC was just a hop and a skip away we thought.  It didn't take long for us to get into DC at 10:00am this morning, but we definately weren't close.  We were told to either watch the parade or the inauguration. We tried to stake out a place for the parade but we weren't allowed entry, so we decided to venture to the capital for inauguration.  We were well behind the Washington Monument and still packed shoulder to shoulder!  I've attached a few pictures.  There's one of people piled up on porta-potties and another of the sea of people in front of us.  Of course there is one of me and my Adam when Obama took his oath.  Lastly, I made a little map ditty of our position. :)  Adam and I were not able to see the jumbo screens very well but we heard Obama's words and they touched us so deeply.  Everything touched us - even the people piled on the potties.  It's an amazing time in this country and we're so glad we went!

Our life in DC is so exciting right now.  Regardless of politcal party association no one can deny the of history being made right now.  Almost all of our friends here have told us they're not going to Inauguration tomorrow.  I was one of those people because I was pretty afraid of terrorists or crazy people trying to kill us who want to celebrate.  After watching the 'We are One' concert on HBO, I was touched all over again as I was on election night.  Regardless of the said 2 million others that will be there, Adam and I are going to witness history tomorrow.  Someone even joked that if anything does happen tomorrow, at least all of us would be remembered with a monument.  Isn't that sweet?  Hmmm, we're just so giddy with excitement to witness this!

 

On another up note we put in an offer on our little dream of a house and the seller accepted.  We're now under contract and about to get inspections done.  I'm pretty nervous/superstitious.  I honestly think blogging about this will jinx us and the house inspection will come up horrible and we won't be able to get this home.  Tear.  I'm keeping our fingers/toes/eyes crossed that everything comes out alright.  I'll let you all know of course what happens!

 

So hola!  Adam and I have been pre-approved.... I'm not exactly sure if that's totally 100% good news for one and all or not, but I'm just running with it.  Since we're pre-approved we get to put an offer on the house.  I'm absolutely mortified.  I have no idea what I'm doing.  In my day to day life I don't like to piss off/offend anyone.... Bartering with someone to buy their home?  Of course I want to have no backbone and offer the full asking price.  I was talking to a few people and some people around here are suggesting I ask $80k less than the asking price.  I think that's outrageous!  I did look at the comps for the area and most people were able to get $10k off the list price which I thought was more reasonable...  We're meeting with a realtor to go over these scary things... So much stress... haha but it will all pan out.  Just wanted to give all of you an update.

My last entry was titled poof... It appeared our favored house listing was taken from us forever.  Not the case.  We talked to a realtor who informed us the listing agent took it off and was going to re-list it....and knock another $20k off the asking price.  That news has prompted us to want this house even more!  We're shopping around for a home loan and even though the  government bailed out all these mortgage companies, I'm not sure what the companies are doing with their money.  All I know is they don't want to share with the fabulous, spicy couple that is Adam and me.  *sigh*  I don't have this idea that we'll get a 100% mortgage.  I know we must save dinero and then buy a home... It's just very disheartening to hear one thing from mortgage companies with unrealistic expectations and then hear couples getting 100% financing with no down payment.  Whether we're approved or denied a loan, we're still saving our nickels and dimes.  Current mood. Defeated.

So it hasn't been more than a day after my first blog about our house hunt, when I find out some news!  Adam and I were in contact with a realtor to see a few more houses this weekend.  Adam wanted to make a list for the realtor, and he went to my favorite zillow site to look up our cute cottage (see prior post's pics).  He couldn't locate that cute house's listing.  He decided to go to http://realtor.com and http://redfin.com to see if the house was there... All sites said the same thing.  The house has been removed from the listings.  Tear.  I'm a very very superstitious person and I swear it was my blogging that caused the listing to poof. be gone. Tear.

I'm not really one for making New Year's Resolutions, but I have decided to come back to the blogging world.  There's just too much fabulousity in my veins to keep it bottled up and not share with one and all.  Adam and I are getting ready to celebrate 4 years of wedded bliss.  We've decided to be hardcore adults and create a 3 year nest egg in 6 months and buy our first place.  I think this blogging adventure is going to include our trials and tribulations of the home buying world.  We're hoping to buy before April 1, so we can ride the 'first home buyer's $7,500' tax refund... The reality of the situation is we'll buy when we're financially ready.  Tear.  The fact that we're not ready hasn't stopped us from stalking home listing sites such as http://redfin.com and my favorite site http://zillow.com.  Zillow is sa-weeeet because it provides 'zestimates' and comps for the home you're interested in.  As of this sassy moment we've decided to move out of Washington, DC and to the countryside of Maryland near the Chesapeake.  We think we've decided on a townish (I'm not sure how towns are classified out here, therefore I refer to them as townishes.  It's basically a 'town' with a post office but no shops.)  Of course we're not ready to buy at this moment, but that didn't stop me from already falling in love with a super cute house. We're not into the culdisacky newly built homes... We prefer the older ones with character.  A few weeks ago we checked out a few homes just to get a feel for the area, and that's when we found this super cute cottage.  See pics below. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi all.  Long time no bloggie...  What has happened since my last blog entry?  A lot!

Christmas came and went, and it was fabulous.  Our little pupy dog made out like a bandit.  She got everything she asked for and more.  Thank you everyone for all her wonderful gifts: she does play stations and goes from one toy to the next every 20 seconds, hehe.

Adam's birthday was New Year's Day, and I did what any wifie could do, I got him a flying lesson!  He was in such shock.  He had no clue where I was taking him.  I had to drive in DC, and i was my first time... I only almost killed us twice, wait three times... But we got there in one piece, and we had a blast.  He's definately going to be taking a lot more lessons, I can tell.

I'm writing today right after we celebrated our third wedding anniversary.  It honestly felt as if we were married last Thursday (on our anniversary).  We're so fortunate to be so happy and complete in our relationship.  *sigh*  He gives me warm fuzzies just typing this.  I made the mistake of scheduligng our little puppy for getting spade the same day as our anniversary... So needless to say, we didn't do much.  Third year you're supposed to get crystal or leather.  We're going to go for the crystal when we get time.

I've uploaded the semi-up to date scrapbook of Pearl that my Auntie Marnie got me.  It turned out so cute, I have to show everyone.  TY Marnie!

That's about it here.  It's supposed to be in the midd 50's so we're going to take our little girl outside and do lots of playing.

 

-Sarah

Hi all!  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in New York with Adam's mom's side of the family.  Although we were there a week, we really needed to s tay a few more to hang out with everyone.  We stayed with Adam's grandma Mary, and witnessed her delicious cooking.  I met people after people, but they were super nice, and make me want to visit more often.  We were able to travel to the finger lakes as well and stay with Adam's auntie Dee and uncle Ray.  By the time we visited them, I was ready to take off another week and have just a vacation there too. hehe. 

 

While I was there I looked at Better Homes & Gardens and got some really nifty ideas about Christmas decorating, so I'll tell ya bout em.  The mag talked about making your Christmas personalized and different... Well, I wasn'ta bout to do some soul searchin and completely go out and buy a whole new 'Christmas' tree dressing wardrobe.  Hehe, so I went within my artsy self and created a Pearl Christmas tree.  I cut out little bone pieces of paper and added some glitter.  See the pics!  I also saw pics of wreathes in windows in the mag... Since living underground for 2 years in the basement apartment, I've wanted to accentuate our windows as best as we can, so I had to do the wreaths!  The first picture is of my sad attempt at a personalized door wreath.  After a little trip to Tarjay and some pieces of holly with my glue gun, I was able to jazz her up and make her a happy wreath.  The candles in the windows is from my side of the family, and the sweet advent calendar cabin?  A super spicy gift from Adam's mama.  I loved the idea of an Advent calendar so much, that I wrapped 24 oranaments and put them on a cake stand... So we get to open a little door on the cabin and open an ornament gift each day until Christmas.  I told Aunt Dee that I love the advent calendars are my favorite and she surprised me with a CHOCOLATE ADVENT calendar!  Wow.  3 things to open each day, hehe.  This is my favorite time of year. 

We had a big day packed in today.  We wanted to go to the Howl-o'-ween puppy parade in  Old Town, Alexandria as well as carve punkins and visit friends at the Marine Corps Marathon... That said, after carving pumpkins for 3 (or more) hours, we had worn out and just wanted to vedge.  We found out little Pearl would be charged $10 to go to the Howl-o'-ween event, and since she's so little and not really participating, we thought that wasn't too necessary.  We could make our own fun for free - except she was more interested in the jack-o'-lantern carving book than the actual pumpkins.  I guess we should be grateful she wasn't all up in the goup that is punkin yuckness. Adam was dramatical and said he simply could not take out the punkin yuck as he would gag.  He meant it.  I told him we're doing a team group project and he needs to get over it... The nhe gagged (sp?). LOL  Too funny.  We carved the most beautiful pumpkins I had ever seen.  Pearl even got her own.  Check out the pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So when we got her... I honestly thought I could control her little bladder, and get her outside in a timely matter.  Yeah, I know I would be wrong.  Just yesterday (day 4) we experienced 4 #1's oops.  It's frustrating becuase we take her out so often.  Yesterday, we literally turned our backs to do something normal (make an english muffin, get her food out, get a jacket, and get my own food from the microwave) and she was doin' her thing.  It's been frustrat... Speak of the little wiggler.  She just came in, she's got # 2 down (outside)... I gotta stop typing.

 

Here's a pic of her from last night... We went to puppy mall (PetSmart), and I caught a groomer who offered to trim her face and put her hair up.

 

K, she's biting my toes.... Gotta go!

 

Let me just say we are exhausted.  Each sentence I'll type will be glancing over my shoulder to see where our little angel is and what she's sniffing.  *sigh*  After a total of 6 hours of driving today and about 4 potty breaks, and her meeting 7 new adults (plus her parents), and 5 children, she's pretty pooped too.  We packed a puppy bag for when we picked her up, but somehow her coller got lost!  So we had a 3 hour trek back without a coller.  Adam and I just made do with her leash looped loosly around her neck while we corralled her.  She was antsy in the car at first but then probably slept for 2 hours.  Hehe.  Check out the pics:

Yes she's going to be spoiled...

 

Adorable

 

Hangin' out

 

Mmm, I did not know Adam felt the need to take pictures of me trying to coerce her onto the grass... :-)

 

Food time.  Girl was hungry!

 

Figuring us out.

 

Playin' already.

 

She loves the camera!

 

 

She's out!  (Sleeping on her own on the blankie and toy from her Gramma and Great-Nana)

 

 

 

I was going to look back and see when the last time was I blogged about wanting a puppy.  I even asked readers for their opinions on which kind of puppy I should get if I ever get one.  I was saddened a couple years back when we were unable to add to our little family.  But times have changed and so has our location...  I'm getting a puppy for my birthday!!!  It's like a double wammie becuase Adam too gets to share in my present. *winks*  I've always wanted a sweet little shih tzu type puppy like my family's little Betsy, but I knew looking around for one here in DC would prove to be a challenge.  Where exactly do you look nowadays? 

 

I know a lot of people around the country base their preferred breeder by other owners who have breed with that person.  Unfortunately I don't really know anyone here, or anyone who breeds for that matter; so I went to the internet and the Washington Post.  Ohh the internet and the Post were scary places.  I don't really trust anyone here to park my car let alone give me a little life! 

 

Being very aprehensive and worrisome made me almost give up completely in the search for a puppy... Until I found this sweet website.  *tear*  Let's just cut to the chase.  Adam and I got a phone call at 7am from a breeder we thought was 2 hours away from us calling us back for a request to see a brand new litter of shih tzu's (about 5 weeks old). 

 

We got in the car almost while we were still on the phone with her!  Good thing we brought directions...  3 hours later we arrived and saw the sweetest little puppies.  There were 3 little black and white puppies (just like our family's Betsy) and one little black girl. 

 

Adam instantly fell in love with a little grunting black and white spitfire who loved him from the moment she saw him.  I couldn't help but look at the black and white girl and call her Betsy!  I don't know if I was able to tug at his heart strings for the sweet little black girl puppy, or she herself started tugging at his pants... and his heart strings.  We were sold on the little black puppy. 

 

Since I'm such a planner I've gone hardcore into naming her before we met her.. But honestly I picked out the name Ruby Sparkles, and this little sweetie just isn't a Ruby... 

But she is a Pearl.  Our little black Pearlita.  Pearl is a rare color being completely black and she comes from top of the line pedigree.  I got a lot of information on her little family tree and it is really special.  She'll only get to be about 10 lb as she is more of a toy shih tzu.  Hehe!

 

I hate to go with the unfortunately's but Unfortunately we could only reserve her, not take her home today.  She's too young, and the breeder has to de-worm, vaccinate, and micro chip her before she'll be ready (on Oct 19!)... So my birthday is Oct. 11 and we'll have a little addition a few days later.  I couldn't be happier, and I had to share with you all!