Surprise!

We decided to adopt Forest a few weeks before he was old enough to come home with us. As soon as the breeder confirmed that Forest was ours, we told my family and all of our friends about him. We didn’t mention anything to Nick’s family. Shhh, we were being sneaky. Our plan was to get Forest on July 25th and then visit Nick’s family in Iowa the following weekend. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to just show up with an adorable puppy that no one knew about?”

Yeah, that idea sucked. As soon as I got Forest, I couldn’t shut up about him. But here was this huge group of people that had to be kept in the dark. So no messages or photos on Facebook because one of his family members might see it. No phone calls about that cute thing he does with his tail or emails describing his first car ride (which was very, very unpleasant). Nothing, nada, zip.

When we finally drove up to his family’s house in Iowa, I was almost as hyper and squirmy as Forest was to get out of the car (though I didn’t have to pee nearly as badly as he did). Besides being super excited, I was also a little nervous. My brain had cooked up a long list of things that could potentially go wrong that weekend. Maybe someone else would bring another dog and we’d spend the whole weekend breaking up fights (Forest hadn’t played with other dogs yet and I wasn’t sure how he would react). Or maybe Forest would bark all night and keep everyone up. Or maybe Forest would poop in the house and someone, naturally not expecting dog doodie on the kitchen floor, would step in it (sadly, being on constant poop alert has become habit for Nick and I). And so on.

But everything turned out wonderfully. His family adores Forest. I’ve never seen so many grown men get down on their hands and knees to play with a puppy no taller than a basketball. Yes, Forest did take a dump in the living room, but everyone was very understanding and no one stepped in it. And he did whimper a little at night but no one woke up (or they were very nice and lied about not waking up, thanks folks!).

I won’t try to describe the whole weekend in one posting, I’ll share those stories later. Overall, the weekend rocked and we weren’t allowed to leave until we promised we’d bring Forest the next time we visited. I get the impression that Calli + Nick - Forest = some sad Iowans.

Surprise!