One year is complete now!

Well, one year ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Winfield with our dogs, six suitcases, two laptop cases, two carry on bags and Ross. Shelby was wearing his little plaid sweater because he was SO cold. Now, we are sitting in the tropics...freezing our butts off..It's only 20C and has been raining for over a week now. It is damp and cold at night and we are wearing PANTS...yes, pants and I have a hoodie on!

It is crazy how fast the year has gone.

What have I learned in the past year?

1. Patience
2. Rice is good
3. Puppies will eat anything
4. Dominican drivers are the worst drivers on the face of the earth (yes, worse than Calgary drivers!) There are no real rules of the road here...biggest tires win...ok, that's kinda like Alberta! LOL
5. You can make alot of things with 200 lbs of bananas.
6. Ross is grouchy when he wakes up from a nap
7. Beer is best frosty cold
8. Frogs can lay thousands of eggs in a freshly cleaned pool through the course of a night
9. Puppies will eat anything
10. Laughter is completely necessary
11. Hurricanes are not fun
12. Grass grows quickest when the lawnmower is out of gas
13. Gringos throw some mighty fine potluck dinners
14. Don't light fires when the grass is brown and dry and it's windy
15. Ross can change a lightbulb on a 20' ceiling without a ladder or chair..can you say broom handle, tongs, and rubber gloves?
16. Driving a quad in the rain isn't that bad
17. Puppies will eat anything
18. Four dogs and one cat poop lots

So, you might have noticed I said "four" dogs. Yes, in a blind moment of stupidity, we got another puppy. "Boss" is the newest member of our family. He is a Belgium shepard and is now seven weeks old. Boss is a "man" dog. He is showing very strong personality traits and is going to get some obdience training/guard dog training when he gets older. Since we got him he has almost doubled in size. He loves to play tug-o-war with Jack. He torments the cat endlessly but I think the cat secretly loves it.

The dogs are getting along really well and have accepted Boss into the pack. Here is a favorite pass time:

We are into the "rainy season". In the last week or so we have had at least 12 inches of rain. Ross is waiting for someone to come and fix the leak in our pool so he had drained about half the water out of the pool. He is going to have to re-drain the pool as it is almost full again.

So, what will Year 2 bring? Probably lots of the craziness that Year 1 brought except, we are a little wiser (notice I didn't say older??).

To all our friends in the motherland, ENJOY THE WINTER!!! Keep warm, happy, and healthy!