First of all, you guys are hilarious. Thanks for texting, posting, and generally being the best. It’s kind of neat to know you guys care enough to check back and see what all this hub-bub has been about. Thanks for sticking it out with me, Awkward McGee. Hope you guys are just as enamored as we are… 🙂

To say I’ve always wanted a dog is an understatement. Most all of my friends growing up had dogs. Beagles, terriers, labs, great danes… My family? We’re cat people. Always have been and always will be. Smoky, Freeway, Ally, Mittens, Buster, Sophie, Pippin, Izzy, Caroline, Penny, Ike, Rusty…

But no cat could fulfill the longing to rub my face in that fur and to scratch those velvety ears. And oh! Those sad, puppy eyes! Hearing claws tap tap tap on our wood floor before that wet nose is pressed to my hand, or to see that happy tail wag when those eyes meet mine! My heart!

We’ve talked about getting a dog since before we were married, so this decision wasn’t a light one. Plus, Jason didn’t initially like the idea of having three pets. (Like we were going to turn in to some crazy pet people. Ha!) So one day I was having a dog moment, and I launched us into the ‘Dog Talk.’ We talked about it again and decided now is as good a time as ever!

I’ve always, always wanted a golden retriever, literally since I was ten. So that’s what we looked for. And on a Tuesday evening, when I was coming really close to my wits end and starting to think it would never happen, I found her. I emailed Byron, the man who had posted the ad, and when I didn’t hear anything after waiting a whole five minutes, I called the number listed. (Type A? Who, me? Okay, yeah. Me.) I made an appointment for the next day to go down and check her out.

My drove down there and made it to the man’s house, but no one was home. My heart was pounding in my ears, my stomach was in knots. This is fake! I wasted all that gas! I didn’t even get Starbucks! Shelby talked me down and made me call the guy. I was semi-relieved when he said he’d be home soon, though I was still convinced he would show up, trap us in his house, and murder us.

When he got home, we took the plunge to walk inside armed with tasers and pepper spray. To our huge relief, there were twelve golden puppies scurrying to meet us. Look at these guys!

 Byron showed us the two girls left and Shel and I took turns holding them. As soon as I picked my girl up she licked all over my face!

Look at that hilariously goofy grin. The goofy grin of a girl in love, I tell ya!

I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I wanted to walk out with her right then and there. He snapped that snazzy green collar on her though and told me to wait.

Wait we did, and today we went back to finally bring her home. Pepper!

I’ll be posting a “day of” post next week along with several photo dumps/fawning posts. I can’t get enough of her!

And that is the end of my very long blog post full of italics and parentheses overuse. 🙂