Introducing.....TUCKER!!!

As I make this post, lookie lookie what cutie is sitting here with me....it's TUCKER! We are in love! Note: Excuse my gross appearance, I ran 6 miles tonight (and then ate a salad and two pieces of cheesecake....darn you cheesecake!).

This post would not be complete without the entire explanation of what ACTUALLY occurred this weekend. As Charles Dickens said, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."

Goal for the weekend: Go to Arkansas and spend a relaxing weekend as a family, on the lake, fishing, hanging with our new puppy and enjoying the fresh Ouachita Mountains.

Here's what happened.

1. We rented a cottage. We called the resort to let them know we would be arriving late Friday night. The lady who ran the place told us she would leave Cottage Z open, with the keys inside and the lights on and to just "go on in" since it would be so late.

2 Arrival: 11:15pm. Trey says, "want me to go check it out first?" I reply, "naaa....I want to check out the bed situation to get the girls moved in quickly." I go up to Cottage Z. I open door and walk in. I find half naked man, in bed, watching TV. I am shocked. My eyes almost come out of my head (WHO LEAVES A DOOR UNLOCKED?). I quickly slam door and start doing the, as Trey calls it, "Katie uncomfortable dance" while in a state of confusion. I then sprint to car. Half naked man comes out of room speaking some sort of Cajun language I cannot understand. I told him we were told we were staying there. He continues Cajunish language. I decide there's no way I'd stay there now anyways and I leave. We call owner of resort to figure things out.....she went to bed. It's now 11:30PM. We are in the sticks. We have NO place to stay. Oh.....boy.

3. Where we ended up. After being rejected from other hotels due to them being booked, we found an open room at a motel that looked sketchy.....at best. When Trey went to check-in, I was hoping when he came back that he would tell me he gave the place a 4 out of 10....he didn't....he said it was a 3 out of 10 at best. I should have known. Please observe pictures from the interior of the room...

Luckily, Trey killed two roaches before I found them. Reese was very excited about the pink toilet seat. I was not. In fact, once we were in bed for the night, I went to Trip Advisor on my iPad and read the reviews on the place. One stated, "This motel is the epitome of nasty. A lot of sketchy people live in this motel because it's so cheap, and it is notorious for drug busts. At one time, someone had a chicken living in one of the rooms with them, no joke." Another one said, "Couldnt wait to leave. Room had no heat, woke up freezing the next morning. Room smelled like cat urine. Didnt hardly sleep at all. Reminded me of the Bates Motel in the movine "Physco". And finally, "Website states $22 per night single room. When I arrived, the office had a sign stating "Go To Room 20". Room 20 had a sign etched in crayon stating "Go To Room 18". Went to Room 18 and obviously interupted some "personal" event between night manager and boyfriend. When they opened the door, the smell about knocked me down ! I reluctantly asked about a room and was told $55 per night !!! When I mentioned the website, she said "I don't know nuttin bout that cause it's $55 from me". It was late and I asked if I could see a room anyway but the manager said all the rooms looked like hers. I don't live higher class but I would not house my dogs in the room she showed me (hers). There were cars in various states of repair and junk/ equipment scattered around the parking areas and was CREEPY, VERY CREEPY to say the least."

Go ahead and laugh now.

Trey told the girls we were on an adventure! The girls thought it was great. Oh...my....goodness.

4. Now for the good part. Getting a dog has been a long time coming. It took me quite a while to get over losing my boy, Jake. In fact, when talking about him last weekend, I came to the brink of tears....again. He was awesome and my heart wasn't ready for another dog until recently. The girls have been BEGGING for a puppy. We finally felt ready and had been recommended to use a wonderful family who had goldens in Arkansas. We thought we'd make a fun weekend of it....well, the puppy part was fun!

We arrived to see lots of adorable puppies.

There were three boys left. We knew we wanted a boy. One of them was digging, barking and gnawing on all kinds of stuff.....I quickly eliminated him from the selection process :). The other two were precious, but one, in particular, stuck out to us.

And so, after considering the names Oreo, M&M, Booger (thanks Trey) and Tucker, the family agreed that Tucker sounded like the perfect name. Plus, since I had wanted to name a boy Tucker and that didn't happen, we found a way to use it!

We quickly decided that rather than find a new place to stay for the night, that we would go home and still have a good portion of the weekend left to just hang out. It was the best decision.

The ride home was so smooth. He slept the entire way on various laps.

Hailey has been so responsible and takes him out all the time and praises him. In fact (KNOCK ON WOOD PEOPLE), there have been zero accidents so far and this guy likes his crate 99% of the time! I came out of our bedroom today and found them doing this on the couch together :).

It feels good to have a dog in the house again. Makes our house a home. And, there's something about watching the kids learn from and interact with animals that is so wonderful. I'm sure we will have some puppyhood stories and that all won't be smooth sailing, but it'll be a fun journey.