Spoiled

Arthur has finally found the place he belongs in our family. The boys have been working for days to get Arthur to lay on Jeremiah's bed. Yesterday at nap he stayed in there while they slept. Now today he thinks he owns the place and hops up there without invitation. This, of course, thrills the boys!

Joshua even took his "nap" in Jeremiah's toddler bed this afternoon so he could sleep with Arthur (there no actual napping taking place, but I got a bit of a break at least). This was only after I assured him our short legged little dog could not make it up there to sleep in his bed. I'm pretty sure this can't last much longer. Jeremiah is only going to keep getting bigger and there's really no more room on the bed!

O Shenando....

While my parents were visiting Phil was on his pre-deployment leave (time off). We decided to take a little trip during that time. We were able to get out of Virginia Beach and headed toward the Blue Ridge Mountains and spent a few days in Shenandoah Valley. It was beautiful!

Phil and I headed up a day ahead of my folks and the boys. We had dinner out, drove the scenic byway and hiked a little bit. It was so relaxing and beautiful!

The one downside to being so far out? NO cell reception for us at all! Made it a little difficult to coordinate meeting up with my parents. It all worked out eventually, of course.
We relaxed and breathed some clean air. We also visited this cool place (yes, I just said "cool" and I know that totally dates me) called Luray Caverns.

 We are now the proud owners of boys who know the difference between stalactites and stalagmites!

The roads out there seem to all be twisty and turny. Nice for a vacation but not sure I'd like to drive it all the time.

When we finally headed home we got to bring home with us a 30 year old Daddy!

Arthur was pretty glad to get to tag along as well!

Arthur

We have a new addition to our family tonight. His name is Arthur Dug Pickle (the boys, of course, helped to name him).

The Arthur part comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) and Dug comes from the movie "Up."

So far he's fitting right in. He's still recovering from his surgeries today and will be for probably the next week or so but the boys are so excited to have him around.

 Arthur is a pure bred basset hound we found at our local SPCA. He's a gentle guy- the first one we've visited with independently that didn't scare Jeremiah. We're pretty sure Jeremiah must smell like bacon because a lot of dogs seem to give him way more attention than he wants.

As you can see, things with Jeremiah are going swimmingly so far!
Arthur is 6 1/2 already but bassets live to be around 10-14 years on average so we still have lots of time left. We've been waiting for him to be ready for us to pick him up for over a week. We visited him several times in that time so he already feels like part of the family. At the moment, he's actually sleeping right behind the chair I'm sitting in.
I'll leave it at that for now, but I'm sure you'll hear more about our adventures with Arthur... or as Jeremiah calls him "Arfer."