Introducing~~~~~~Boots~~~~~~~~

Well it seems that everyone else around us now has a house dog. We felt like we must be missing out on something and boy or boy were we ever. We brought home the most amazing dog on Sunday from Indy. We had been looking on Craig's List for a little bit older house dog. One that was already house broke and good with kids. I kind of had it in my mind to find a pug, puggle or a schnauzer. I looked on CL between Ft. Wayne, Muncie, Lima, Dayton, Indy and Columbus. I emailed quite a few people about different dogs and seemed to keep missing the 'perfect dog.' Well on Saturday night I checked again and saw that a 1 yr. old miniature schnauzer was in need of a home because his family had to move into an apartment that didn't allow pets. I called them right away not wanting to miss out on this little guy. We were the 2nd family to call but the other family didn't commit to him and I said "We'll take him!!" On our drive to Indy I told the kids that Boots' might be scared and his current family might be sad because they didn't want to give him away at all!! When we walked into Boots' home he barked at us (schnauzers are very protective of their family but makes friends quickly if their family accepts the 'outsider') but quickly warmed up to us. He is a salt and pepper colored mini-schnauzer. I think he looks like a little old man with his gray eyebrows and bushy beard. The family said their good-byes and we promised to take extra good care of him!! He did fantastic on the 2 hour drive home. He took turns sitting on everyone's lap. He is an absolute joy...he only barks at Mulan (oh yeah, Mulan might not consider him much of a joy;o) and if somebody is at the door. If he gets too wound up we just say in a firm voice "Boots NO"....he sits downs and stops barking. I wish any of my 5 kids listened as well as Boots....hmmmm, maybe Ted and I should had 5 mini-schnauzers instead of 5 kids. Boots goes to the door when he needs to potty and lays down when it's bedtime and goes right to sleep until morning. I just can't believe how easy and loving he is. The picture of Boots with the lei is for our Hawiian friends...Roy and Tutu.

Okay...maybe I'm a bit biased but I think these are the two cutest Chinese girls in the world. On Feb. 28th we celebrated Audrey's 4th 'forever family day' and Rachel celebrated her 4th birthday. Kind of cool to think that 2-28-05 was very special for by my family and my brother's family. To read more about Rachel: http://raisingourgirls.blogspot.com

We had to readopt Rita for her to become a US citizen. Yes...Rita looks very but Ted and I have fake smiles thinking that if our guide in Armenia would have done things different Rita would have came to the USA on a different visa and we wouldn't have had to do this. All we could think about was $900 that we had to complete the adoption the same week as Ted's first week being laid-off (with no end in sight). Rita totally enjoyed her time in court and the judge made it fun for the kids. She let each kid set in her seat and pound the gavel....then she gave each kid their own mini-gavel...yeah!!

We went to a Chinese New Year party at a families' home in Berne. It was lots of fun. As you can see Paul is cheating at "pin the tail on the ox" in honor of the year of the ox. This is my zodiac year....yes it's true I'm only 24 (the zodiac goes in 12 year cycles...so maybe I am almost 36 but 24 sure sounds alot better).

Here's the group photo minus Audrey. That little stinker refused to get in the picture!! My niece Rachel is in the middle with the jean jumper and Paul is on the end. Ai Wen is 2nd from the left....our families traveled together to adopt Paul and AiWen.

Well, thankfully Ted has stayed busy with auto repairs while being laid off. Lots of people have been laid off behind him with the good possibility of more. So it could be quite a long time before he would get called back. He is job hunting but there just isn't much out there. Our family is very blessed that he has another skill to bring decent money in right now. Of course the "dirty teeth" business is always busy so no worries about my job. I did spend 4 hours in the ER with Audrey yesterday. We had went to the family doctor on Friday and she tested positive for influenza B. I'm sure that Rita and Andrew had the same thing but Audrey just couldn't pull out of it. She became so dehydrated that she was miserable. She was on an IV (aka arm medicine) for 1.5 hours and she perked right up. We went home and she ate 3 helping of spaghetti. She had barely ate anything over the last week. On Friday she was down to 28 pounds!!! With spring coming I'm hoping that we are about at the end of all of this sickness.