...continued

August 22nd

The packer has been here for the last two days. Lily isn’t quite sure what is up. All she sees is everything we own going into boxes. She really does like the tubes that come at the end of the shrink-wrap they use around the furniture, though. She likes to toss it around the front yard. You just never know where a good toy can come from I guess.

August 24th

This was our last day in Flagstaff. After some last minute cleaning and some frantic loading of the cars with the stuff we will be taking, we were headed up the road. I’m sure Lily was wondering what was going on. Here we were, both cars loaded up to the gills, the camper stuffed with as much as I dared and Tyree had the motorcycle in a trailer, too. Two vehicles, two trailers. This time, we were prepared with some 2-way radios to keep in touch. Because we were so loaded down, Lily gets to ride with me the whole way. No switching to ride with Dad.

August 25th

Panguitch, Utah. We made pretty good progress yesterday. Lily was perfectly content to stop for the night. She has become quite the traveler and stayed nice and quiet in the hotel.

We finally made it to Tyree’s folk’s house in Oakley, Utah at about 3:00pm. Plenty of time for a quick visit and for Lily to get some exercise. She really enjoyed the freedom of running around the yard without having to be tied up. We really need to work hard at “come” though.

 

August 26th

We headed out early today, with the intention of trying to get a lot of miles behind us so it’s just a quick trip into Portland. I can’t believe, however, that we made it all the way to Pendelton (just 3 hours from Portland). We’re staying at the Red Lion Inn. It has a beautiful view, room service and a big window that is low enough for Lily to look out and watch everything and anything. Tomorrow we will have a nice and easy day.

Lily has been a great traveler. After all, the running around this morning made her pretty tired. Even so, 11 hours is an awfully long time riding in back of the Jeep. She’s wonderful.

August 27th

We have just a short and easy drive today. We’re almost there. I think Lily senses the excitement building.

--later
Well, not everything goes as planned. Just about 50 miles outside Portland I look back in my mirror and notice this black stuff flying out from under my Jeep. Just as I realized it was the tire on the camper, I began losing speed. I quickly radioed Tyree that I had a blow out and slowly followed him to the side of the road. Of course, this was not on a convenient part of the highway.

Lily quietly sits in the back of the Jeep while big trucks are whizzing by as Tyree tries to change the tire without getting killed. (The tire, of course, was on the road side.) Finally after some tricky maneuvering, we’re on our way again.

The Residence Inn in Vancouver is to be our new home. They are VERY pet friendly and we settle in for our stay. Tyree is scheduled to be at work day after tomorrow.

September 8th

This afternoon we drove down to Salem to visit with Bev & Wally. They were really glad to see us and were surprized at how much Lily has grown in the last year. I knew we were in trouble when Lily got out of the Jeep and Wally commented "that's a big girl you have there". If he thinks she's big, we are in trouble when she finishes growing. I definitely DID NOT buy for size.

Lily had a nice afternoon playing with her dad, Chaos and uncle, Riot. It’s great being close enough now for regular visits.

September 11th

A day that will live in infamy. Lily and I were just returning from our morning walk when we heard the news. The rest of the day was spent compulsively watching the coverage while snuggling with Lily.

September 15th

It has been a frantic few weeks of house-hunting. As Lily is unable to stay in the room alone, she gets to help me look for houses. We have lived here before, so a lot of our hunting is on our own, checking out neighborhoods and commute times for Tyree. We check out the rough stuff and just show Tyree the final cuts on the weekends. All in all I think Lily and I have put over 1000 miles on the Jeep in the last few weeks and have looked at about 150 houses. Finally we found what we were looking for and now all we have to do is wait, the closing isn’t scheduled until October 22nd.

Living in the hotel has presented a whole collection of new things for Lily. Our room is on the second floor. Not having been around stairs much, Lily had to learn to navigate these. The room is a “penthouse” that has an interior loft—more stairs. Lily does like the windows that overlook the courtyard, however. From here she can watch clandestinely for her Dad each evening.

One morning, early in our stay, while on our walk, Lily suddenly notices the mail boxes. Now these are only your regulation US Postal Service blue mail boxes that you find near businesses. To Lily, they were ONE SCARY BOX!!! After a formal introduction--Lily this is the mailbox; mailbox this is Lily—everything was fine. However, she always approached it with caution. I guess she never know if it is going to move or not.

 

October 1st

Living in the Northwest makes it easy to explore. Just 2 hours west of Portland gets you to the ocean. Just 1 hour to the east to the mountains. Today we decided to head west. Just a quick run out to the beach for lunch and a hike. Great opportunities for Lily to explore and just hang at the beach.

October 22nd

We spent the weekend ferrying some of our stuff over from the hotel to the new house. While Tyree painted the fence in the yard, Lily spent the day running and exploring on her own. The new fenced yard is quite the treat for her. We’ve been in the Residence Inn for 8 weeks. The staff could hardly believe how wonderful Lily has been. They all really enjoyed having her around.

This morning we had to drop Tyree off at the airport so he could go back to Arizona for the National Skydiving Championships. This is the first move that he won’t be here for the moving truck’s arrival. The truck arrived promptly at 8:00 a.m. Lily was really glad to start seeing her stuff arrive. I was glad to see it all arrive in one piece.

October 28th

Tyree got home today. He was really surprised at how much I had gotten unpacked while he was gone. Lily was anxious to show him around her neighborhood. She has already established the walking routine. It really doesn’t matter to her that it might be raining; she HAS to go for her walk every day. Promptly at 5:00 p.m. you had better be ready to go, or she will sit there squeaking until you are.

November 14th

Lily has decided the she has a new job. Our neighborhood is set up such that the mail boxes are at a central point on the block and each box has a key. The key chain on our mailbox key is a fuzzy Smiley that giggles. Lily has decided that it is her job to carry the Smiley home each day after getting the mail. Every so often she’ll chomp on him until he starts giggling. She’ll happily trot down the sidewalk with a giggling Smiley in her mouth, proud as can be.

December 31st

Another year has passed us by. This one has been filled with a lot of activity and many new experiences for Lily.

Living in the northwest allows us to go on many new adventures, giving Lily many new opportunities to try new things. We were happy to see the snow this year and get back to our old skiing haunts.

If you aren't having a good time here in the northwest, you aren't trying hard enough.