lifetime guarantees

John 3:30

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to run life on autopilot? To get into the rut of a routine and never really notice? And then hark! out of nowhere, you pick your head up from watching the sidewalk you're walking or the road you're driving and you remember that this is a big world that you live in & other wonderful things live in it. It's as if your very own trumpet angel is heralding you to notice the beauty of your surroundings: the cardinals flying in & out of the leafless trees, the sailboats on the river, the pansies on the walk to town. Why is it that we always think that there will be time later to acknowledge the wonder of our world? Why do we always wait?

I think partly it has to do with surrounding ourselves with things. Creating our own little kingdoms of treasures full of beautiful trinkets, trendy clothes, & the latest gadgets (which inevitably get updated every few months these days. Sigh). We are full blown consumers who think we can buy our happiness in little splurges here & there. We check the warranties & guarantees on everything and keep a mental catalog of products whose guarantee lasts 5 years, 10 years, or gasp! even a lifetime. But have you ever stopped to wonder what your guarantee is? 

Oh, that's right... You don't have one, and neither do I. So don't you think it's funny that we humans care more about whether our pots and pans have them than if we do? Because you know what? You only get this life to live, and here's the kicker: there's no guarantee to how long it may last. 

These are things that I know as facts, but I often forget as my reality. It's easy to forget that this life is not my own, and I was not sent here to worry about grocery lists, household chores, or weekend activities. My sole job is to glorify the God I love, to praise him in everything I do, & to live this life to the fullest by sharing & abiding in his love with as many people as I can. That is my lifetime guarantee. Because once this life ends, a greater place of peaceful existence is waiting for me, & I finally get to hold the hand of my Creator. And that will be something truly beautiful. 

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

No one can serve two masters.

Either he will hate the one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and Money.

Matthew 6:19-21, 24


{and fingers crossed, I outlast my Calphalon}

dreaming of a hot summer's day

I never thought I would get to a point that I would admit to wanting to see & experience the sun so much that I even miss its hot summer days. If you know me, you know that I am a fair-skinned freckled girl, my make-up is one color hue off from white (aka porcelain, ivory, or 01), & I don't tan, I burn. That being said, even I am sick of this cold, dreary, & wet winter and would rather worry about dehydration than wearing enough layers to shake off the constant shivering (I'm from the South, can't help it that I'm a wimp).

This weather makes me long for the weekend husband & I spent in NYC last summer. So here goes a trip down memory lane to help remind me of what sun looks like:

Summary:

+ It's a good thing I don't live in NYC as I would probably spend all my time eating at Chelsea Market, as evidenced by a fourth of these pictures showing its yummy food. I wish I could say those were the only pictures of food I took there, but I can't lie either. Womp womp...

+ I wish that we had had time to walk the whole Central Park. My nerdy self tells me that it would revel in all the beauty of Frederick Law Olmsted's design (which also makes me want to reread The Devil in the White City. Nerd alert). My cabin fever tells me it just wants to see grass and trees and flowers and warmth. Either way the desire to trek all over that park right now is pretty great.

+ I really miss being able to throw my chacos on & wear them with anything in my summer wardrobe, dresses/skirts included. No shame, only fame guys. Now that I'm married, I can partially blame it on my adventurous husband (but it's not really his fault).

+ That Highline Park is pretty dang neat. Totally suggest walking on it the next time you're in NYC.

+ We walked the Brooklyn Bridge (because who doesn't love a bridge merrily designed in gothic architecture?), but as the majority of the bridge was covered in scaffolding along the whole walk, there wasn't much to take a picture of...

+ Even DC was shining beautifully in the sun that weekend. We took that picture as we walked back from Union Station after our horrifically long trip back in a Megabus (New Jersey turnpike, anyone? Yuck). 

Ah, sun... get back in my life.

a perfectly balanced weekend

From start to finish, this past weekend was one of simple perfection. It had the semblance of everything you could want in a weekend: lazy mornings, late night chats, lots of yummy food (not an exaggeration), fun outings, & cozying up on the couch. Could you really ask for more?

P.S. ^^ That is a $1 million in tens. No big deal.

Friday started off with a metro ride to take a tour at the Bureau of Engraving & Printing. Fun fact: did you know they print $1 billion in bills a day? Don't get all in a tizzy though, 95% of that goes to replace all the old & worn bills that the Federal Reserve locations collect from banks across the country. But seriously, 1 billion dollars printed every day?? Whoa.

Proof that my husband has a split personality of being a funny kid^^

And what better way to console one's self from seeing literally millions of dollars being printed and stacked than to eat waffles? There is none, I tell ya. So off to try Wicked Waffle, before heading back home to wait on our long-time-coming couch! Wahoo, finally somewhere to sit! And if you think our excitement was overstated, let's just say once we nestled in we didn't leave the apartment or the couch for that matter until noon the next day {Side story: our couch excitement was so severe, we finally acted upon our plan to purchase another chair for our den... less than 30 minutes after our couch was delivered}.

Saturday started and ended much the same way: being lazy, eating, and having lively conversations (mainly technology being released before its time & how to cope with an ever changing world. If you were wondering, we never came up with a solid answer. Anybody have a good solution to this?) But the middle part of the day included mapping out a plan to hang our gallery wall, perusing IKEA for odds & ends, a long & fun trip to REI as we researched/tried out what colorful sleeping bag, day pack, etc. would be suitable for me so that we can get to hiking ASAP once the warmer weather returns, a grocery run to pick up some baked goodies & fruit, and a yummy pizza date at Brixx. 

And Sunday? Sunday was just the cherry on top to our perfect weekend. Husmate & I took a long walk around King Street & the Waterfront, ambled along inside the Torpedo Factory Art Center, & stumbled upon an open house where we fronted as a couple in the market for a 2 bedroom condo with a loft (holy condo association fees, Batman!). About 7 minutes after we got home, husmate suggested we go see a showing of Silver Linings Playbook that started in 5 minutes time, and so off we went! After emerging from the theater we decided to continue our spontaneity streak and go to Whole Foods to try our first pint of Jeni's Ice Cream, as well as a few cookies... you know since we were there and all {If you haven't heard of Jeni's, they're a creamery out of Columbus, Ohio that hand makes every small batch of ice cream from super healthy sources. They have some wacky flavors, as well as some pretty tasty normal ones; we stuck with dark chocolate for our first taste & good golly, it is wonderful.}. We also own Jeni's recipe book & fully plan to start concocting some of our own attempts at her yummy goodness, once the temperature gets above 50 degrees of course. Sunday concluded with watching the Academy Awards, rooting on our favorites (go Argo!), & marveling at just how long that awards show can last. Could you imagine wearing a massive ball gown and sitting in a theatre chair for almost four hours? Especially one that has a tight bodice? And how do you get in/out if you aren't sitting on the front row? Many questions I had time to ponder over the course of the show and concluded with a "thanks, but no thanks."

And now here we are on a Monday. Five more days to another fun weekend!

random musings for a friday

Imagine sitting in something only a tinge more comfortable than this for two months. Yeah...

+ Husmate got an email yesterday from Petco telling us that we have $13 to spend from the Petco Pals 5% back rewards program on a dog that we no longer have. Awesome....

+ In other news, the couch we ordered last month and were told would be here by February 4th is going to be delivered today! Hallelujah! I mean you can only sit in a Victorian chair for so long before it's just not comfortable anymore. Plus, it almost makes you feel like you're in a perpetual wall squat. And who really wants that? Did I mention that we have three flights of stairs and low hall ceilings? Yeahhhhhh... I can't wait to see the Pottery Barn delivery men work through that. But hey, they're professionals. No need to worry, right?

+ Husmate & I were minorly disappointed in the Downton Abbey season finale. I mean, really? What a Christmas Day downer, Brits... So to boost some of my spirit of sadness annoyance I have recently started watching Parks & Recreation on Netflix. I gotta admit, I'm surprised by how much I like it. And since husmate & I are still in our West Wing stage (who doesn't love that show??), I am patiently waiting for Rob Lowe to appear in Parks & Rec so I can imagine that this is just another part of Sam Seaborn's resume. I know, I'm weird.

+ Is it spring yet? Ready for these cold days whose temperatures appear to be below freezing due to the lovely accompaniment of the wind to go away. It's hard to motivate myself to go run along a river when it's all feels-like-24 outside. Blah. So here's my compromise, if the wind agrees to disappear, I'll agree to embrace the 30's and merrily run along the river. Do we have a deal mother nature? Please?

11/12 of a new year's resolution: being intentional

Fact: I never make new year's resolutions. Mainly because it's a little cliche & so easy to stop caring about them come MLK weekend. But I think this year there's a bigger underlying movement that's calling for a resolution of sorts: being more intentional with our health & wellness (physical, mental, spiritual, etc.). Two things have come to our attention in the past few weeks that have brought upon this change in attitude. 

one: we visited a dentist in the area who laid things out so black & white that it kind of clicked for me. He introduced himself as Dr. D, and he was just a neat dude {His back story was that he helped start a dental clinic for HIV patients in NYC who otherwise would have had nowhere to receive treatment, but at one point in his life he thought about dropping out of school to become a cabinetmaker in Vermont. Can you tell that he's cool to talk to?}. Anyways, he literally shows you your teeth in a mirror and points out everything. And when you talk to him afterwards, his approach to health is you either do it or you don't. He asked about my flossing habits (who really does that everyday anyway?) and instead of advocating for better gum health, he merely said "You'll either do it or you won't. It's up to you." And by golly, he's right! Who else should care more about my health than me?

two: out of the blue, we watched Hungry for Change on Netflix. Whoa, you guys. Conspiracy central. You think you're eating food? You're not. And it's cool, I'm not about to turn all vegan, organic, or gluten-free, and neither do I think you should either. But the fact remains that there are higher powers at work (cough lobbying groups, industries, and governments cough) whose best intentions are not to always look out for a consumer/constituent but rather for a big name employer/economy. Frankly, we're all eating food-like products, but not food. Isn't that slightly disconcerting to think about? I mean think about it: what are the origins of Coke/Diet Coke? Can you visualize the produce/grains it comes from without looking? And doesn't it creep you out what the shelf life of some products are? How do they last that long?? 

All that to say, we Berry's are about to start getting healthier around here. We've already noticed a change in lifestyle in where we live in Alexandria to how we lived in the south. First off since parking/traffic is a nightmare, we walk a good bit more (whoo more walking and less carbon emissions!), and due to that, we never get fast food anymore unless we're road tripping somewhere {speaking of, hey gas stations, can we start getting some healthier food in your convenience stores? pretty please?}. But we're actually starting to take all this health nonsense to a new level by eating more fruits & veggies and less processed foods. We're actually going to run a half marathon that I will not talk myself out of, while in the process start to really use the Mt. Vernon trail running a quarter mile from our apartment (hey warmer temps, can you start up soon? K thanks). 

Because you know what? No one else is going to care about your health as much as you will one day. That day that health complications start to show up or the day you can't really play ball with your kid because you never exercised the 10 years prior will be the day you regret the decision to not respect your body. And I don't really want that for myself, and I know husmate doesn't either. So we're going to start caring about our health now and hope for the best later! 

So... anybody want a carrot? {fun fact: I have already done a callback to when cartoons were GOOD and chomped my carrots while saying "Ehhh... what's up, doc?" Fingers crossed you recognize the reference... I know, I'm a nerd}

P.S. I know I ragged on Coke, but for those of you who really know me, you know I won't be giving that up for life. But I'm going on the mindset of the Europeans who view Coke as more of a treat than as an understood meal companion. Water is quickly becoming my new BFF. Gasp! 

a whirlwind weekend of spontaneity & surprises

This past weekend, husmate and I basically became one with the car. Last Wednesday rolled around and the idea popped into our minds that "hey! let's road trip down to Oxford (must it be there?) to see our good friends, Emily & Josh, get married." So we did. We Berry's decided to be all spontaneous and make a weekend of it.

Seven states. Four days. Lotsa miles. Lotsa hours in a car. Lotsa Avett Brothers. We experienced many different forms of weather from sun to clouds, rain to snow. We drove the flat plains of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina. We saw it all, folks.

Highlights of the trip:

+ Surprising everyone by showing up to Emily & Josh's wedding unannounced. And when I say everyone, I mean it. We didn't tell anyone that we were coming, so there were a lot of double takes and second glances in the foyer of the Ole Miss Paris-Yates Chapel. Yes, guys, it is us! And oh, it was such fun! It truly lightened our hearts to see all of husmate's high school friends, even if for a short time (and a 14 hour road trip). I don't think we've laughed so freely as we did around all of those wonderful people, and we can't wait to see those faces again! Lucky for us, Emily & Josh are actually living 3 metro stops away from us, so we'll be seeing them again quite soon ;)

+ Having the opportunity to spend some time with my brother, his wife, their sweet little Tyler, & Tyler's loving and furry older sister, Stella. Tyler's at the ripe age of 15 months and already learning the wonder of T-ball and bubbles and how funny the sound is that elephants make. Watching him walk around in his footy pajamas like an old man sticking out his cute little belly really warmed my heart. 

+ Realizing that we thought driving to the South would mean warmer temperatures but instead we brought the snow with us... in Virginia and Tennessee and Alabama and Mississippi. Man, we really know how to bring the cheer.

+ Grabbing a quick lunch at Jackson's in Homewood with Mom & Dad who made the drive just for us. I mean who can say no to Jackson's anyway?

+ Husmate surprising me for both a late Valentine's day and 2 year anniversary of sorts (our engagement) by getting us a room at fancy schmancy bed & breakfast in Asheville for a night. It was so nice we didn't even know what to do. Ha! But we now know what it feels like to stay in a home filled with nothing but antiques and what B&B people really are like (super chatty at breakfast by the way... which for this night owl isn't quite what I'm used to). But by golly did we ever learn about the workings of the CDC in Atlanta! There were two couples who made the connection that all four of them worked there and after that, the conversation was nothing but things CDC-related. Fun fact: did you know they have their own sort of rush week/hell week? I knew that fraternity stuff would carry over into real life somehow... (chi omega chi chi omega... c h i o m e g a... chi chi omega- it's stuck on repeat in my head. make. it. stop.) Needless to say, I think we'll revisit the B&B life when we're a lot older. Neat experience, but need to be older.

+ The many conversations we had in the car to fill the ever ticking travel time. When you travel a total of 32 hours over the course of four days, there's gonna be a lot of talking. Serious topics, joking topics, random topics, memory lane topics, & daydream topics. All of those range between full senses, delirium, & annoyances at still being in the car. You catch my drift. I think some of my favorites were recounting the days of learning sports with our families (Blake, remember that time I lost the baseball in the sun and caught the pop fly with my ear? I think we learned that day that baseball/softball wasn't my thing), the awkward/serious conversations we've had in the past that could only happen while being trapped in a car (birds and the bees people, and avoiding eye contact with said parent for several hours), chats about our future and what we think will happen (where we'll live, when we'll have kids, our careers/future schooling, how we'll parent, running a B&B in Alexandria one day (ha! kidding... sorta)), and plans for the spring/summer (hiking! sunlight! travels around our neck of the woods! fingers crossed, the beach!).

+ Getting desperate to spend even a minute outside of the car, spurring on the impulsive rest stops for Chick-fil-a cookies and milkshakes. Sanity is key, people. 

But in the end, we made it back to our little condo and had a wonderful weekend seeing/talking (face-to-face!) with some familiar faces. Here's to the next 30+ hour road trip in our (hopefully not too near) future! 

a lovely wooden bench

Some of you might have wondered why the header of this blog is an empty bench in a seemingly empty park... yes? Well, long story short that bench is where my sweet husband proposed to me two years ago today. But who ever likes a long story cut short? Not I said the fly. Of course, I hail from the days of Chi O's having candlelights every week, so perhaps I just enjoy a good proposal story... I can't help it. So if you don't care to hear about how we started this little journey of wedded bliss, you can skip this post. If you're a diehard romantic, you may want to stick around... ;)

Well, two years ago good ole husmate pulled the wool over my eyes and led me to believe that he needed help finding an apartment up in DC for when he started his job. Somehow it was simultaneously important enough that my advisor (sweet Dr. A) excused me from a mandatory Alumni Delegate function and common enough that my usually detail-oriented always-asking-questions mother simply said "be sure to take a camera!" Hmm... red flag, anyone? (Actually my mother being so keen on the idea from the start really did send up a red flag, but I just brushed it off and asked my dad if she was okay. Haha!). I then emailed all my professors that I would be absent on Friday (one of them told me it was my decision if I wanted my grade to suffer... I think I made the right decision in the end) and started to get excited to fly to my favorite city!

Since I now had a free weekend, I packed my bag and flew with then-boyfriend to DC eeearrrly Friday morning. He told me that the schedule consisted of job interviews on Friday morning and apartment hunting on Saturday, so when he left me at the hotel to go to his "interviews" I thought nothing of it. I climbed back in bed and took a nap, while the boyfriend was actually walking around the city memorizing his route for that night's plan & calling some friends to calm his nerves. He came back that afternoon saying his "interview" went well, and we got ready to go to dinner.

Boyfriend was super smooth in that he "let me" choose where to eat knowing that I would choose a restaurant we went to the previous summer while he interned up here and I was visiting friends. So still no red flag had been raised in my head. After dinner, I begged him to walk around the monuments at night because it's my favorite time of day to view them (again part of his evil plan). Still no red flag. 

As we're walking towards the monuments we pass the DAR Constitution Hall and see all these people milling about. By nature, I do not get curious about what others are doing but he does, so he asks if we could go see what was up and I agreed. As we're nearing the steps I see someone pull out tickets to be admitted, and I make a remark about how we don't have tickets and can't we please keep walking to the monuments? I got shot down pretty fast while also being pushed towards the door. Turns out he has tickets to some mysterious show that he won't tell me what it is until we're sitting down in our seats. Red Flag. 

Oh, it's just the Avett Brothers. My favorite band. Ever. No big deal. He tells me he discovered that they were playing here earlier this week and he bought the tickets on stub hub (can you tell how gullible I am with him?) and I totally believed him! Red flag is at half mast. Avett proceeds to play an incredible show, and naive little me- I comment during their song "Murder in the City" about a lyric saying "Always remember, there was nothing worth sharing/Like the love that let us share our name" that one day we'd share that bond. Ha! I crack myself up at how soon that was going to come true. 

So the concert ends and I beg again to walk to the monuments; obviously I am playing into his master plan... So we're walking and talking and heading towards a park that we both had mentioned we wanted to see. I start rambling on about how cute the ducks were in the pond being paired off, and he just lets me go on and on in my merry little nerdy ways. By this point we reach the Bench. We sit down and start chatting, and he tells me he has a small surprise for me. Now you would think that this would cue a red flag? Yeah, weirdly it didn't.

He pulls out a puzzle and tells me to put it together but not to flip it over. Hmm, what was that? Don't flip it over? So there's a part two to this? But that little train of thought exited stage right as I started to put the pieces together. Super sly one over there had collaged together all of the ticket stubs and receipts and trinkets from our relationship (even though he adamantly told me not to be sentimental about these things earlier in our dating relationship), and I was simply put quite mesmerized. He had to interrupt me from my trance to even remind me of part two of the puzzle. Ha, whoops... So I flip it over, and it was a picture of a little boy and a little girl kissing him on the cheek. And there was a speech bubble in the picture that said "Will you marry me?" WHOA. Hold up. Read that again... Yep, it definitely says that. I did not string this together out of my imagination... I look over and he's on one knee. He told me he loved me and asked him to marry him! 

The romantics of the story don't even stop there (I know, right? He's gooood). Inside the box was a gorgeous ring surrounded by yellow rose petals that he told me he picked the same night he told me he loved me for the first time. That night he had given me a red rose, and on our wedding night he gave me a dried white rose (also from the same night). Yeah, he thinks really far in advance...

After he put the ring on my finger, he told me there were a few more things. My mind is completely blank by this point. Can't even fathom what is going on. He hands me our journal and tells me that he wrote about his entire planning process, and in the binding was a scrap of paper I once gave him several months back of a quote by e.e. cummings: "Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense." 

After reading our journal, he said he also had a letter from someone that I might want to read... He hands me an orange letter in a wonderfully familiar handwriting that's addressed to Mr. Jordan Berry (and KB). My sweet big sis, Laney, had been tipped off and wrote a beautiful letter that brought on the first wave of tears. Her letter made our engagement real for me, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to come to the understanding that I was getting a new last name and wonderful husband to spend the rest of my days with. I was so numb from emotions by this point that all I could do was thank God over and over again for all of my many blessings, most of which were sitting on a park bench holding my hand. God is so good.

To end this scene on a note typical of us Berry's, my now-husmate looked at me before we left our little bench and pulled his hand into the shape of a gun and said "Boom!" as if to shoot the starter pistol my dad had always joked about (Boys only get to determine the start to the wedding, girls do alllllll the rest). 

Funny, funny boy whom I get to love for the rest our life. I am a lucky girl.

a valentine for my valentine

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope no one else procrastinated as much as I did to tell your special someone how much you love them (some things never change...). And I know we're all secretly excited to start seeing less pink and red everywhere and more Easter pastels in the grocery stores ;) Reese's eggs here I come! 

a rock, a hard place, & a broken heart

In short, this is a bittersweet post. Let me preface what I'm about to tell you by saying that I never in a million years thought that what has happened is something I would ever do. Which has led me to know that I have always judged people in the past for doing so, but the question remains which is the lesser of two evils?

After a tremendously hard week and a lot of tears shed (we're talking break-up tears here, people), we came to the conclusion that Scout would never be fully happy with us as her parents. Our beautiful and rambunctious Scout was the alpha of her litter in an alpha-type breed, and it became hard to ignore that we were never going to be able to give her the adequate amount of exercise to ever satisfy her needs. That puppy is quite the titan and can already handle several miles of walking at 8 weeks and still have plenty of energy to go on more. The honest truth is that it wasn't going to be fair to her to live in a 650 square foot apartment and never have the opportunity of having the life she deserved: running rampant on lots of land and investigating to her heart's desire all that nature has to offer. 

To set the story straight, we would never do something that would be a disservice to Scout. Even though she was only here for a week, she's left quite a void in our hearts. But she has now happily returned to her mama and the rest of her littermates, and I pray that she finds a loving home that will give her everything she needs.

In the short time she was here, she left us with plenty of funny and sweet memories:

+ her adorable bouncing and bumbling puppy run to jump in a giant pile of leaves

+ her incredible intelligence in learning the commands of sit, stand, off, take it, and here all in the course of 10 minutes (seriously), as well as knowing her name, Scout, almost from the start

+ her sweet puppy stretches after waking up from a nap and that anteater length tongue that came out in her yawns

+ her relentless confidence in meeting any and every person or dog she came across, including a ferocious German Shepherd puppy and a very large pitt mix dog. She never got scared even though she was pawed and barked at pretty hard (if I were her that little bob of a tail would have tucked between my legs and I would have scampered off). And when I say every person, I mean every person. In the course of 9 days, she met almost 40 people 

+ the way she ran around the apartment investigating while chewing her rawhide bone (quite the multitasker, that one)

+ her tendency to sit patiently at your feet (for a few seconds, mind you) and stare up at you as if she were waiting for the next item of business
+ her consistent and obvious distaste for my Uggs, which apparently are hated more by dogs than by humans (I didn't think that was possible). I'm guessing she thought my feet were part sheep.
+ every. single. time. we came back from being outside she would stop climbing the stairs midway to look at herself in the hallway mirror. She knew she was cute. This would usually cause husmate and I to hum "You're so vain..." while she stared at herself for a few seconds
+ one night at 3 am, husmate took Scout out to go potty. He got locked out of the building... without a phone. Together they walked in the 20 degree weather to a hotel a quarter mile away to call me. Let's just say both husmate and Scout were shivering with cold from that botched mission. And did I mention Scout hated cold weather since her fur is so thin? Yeah... The little diva was NOT a happy camper when she got back inside.

As for us, I think it's safe to say that it's not in the cards for us to have a dog right now. One day in our future we'll have the ability to love and care for some little (or not so little) ball of fur, but not today. 

Scout, we love and miss you. We hope you have a long and happy life and become the great dog we know you will be. 

We took the plunge and got a Scout

meet Scout.

Our precious, troublemaking German Shorthaired Pointer whose job it is to cause equal amounts of adorable and chaotic moments. And we've only had her for 24 hours... She's sure to be a handful, but also a wonderful addition to our little fam. We can't wait for all the adventures we'll have introducing her to life in a city full of other cute puppies and lots of walking.

{And FYI, even picking up Scout was quite the adventure. It involved driving through the snowy mountains of West Virginia and trying to find a house in the middle of nowhere. But all of the my anxiety was worth it for one the cutest dogs I've ever seen.}

Wish us luck.