Saludos desde Puerto Rico!

Greetings from Puerto Rico! On Monday we traveled to San German, the oldest city in Puerto Rico. The weather has been perfect and we have been spending a lot of time on the beach reading and relaxing, just what both of us were looking forward to all Fall. Even though I was reluctant at first, I am glad David insisted. I am lucky he would rather spend our money on an experience we can share than things that are just for himself. I will try to remember how much closer together it brought us when the mastercard bill arrives next month. We are staying at The Pineapple Inn, a little B&B here that is just our speed. The beds are comfortable and the owners are hospitable. It is small and quiet, just steps away from the beach, exactly what we wanted.

Most of the time we have been spending on the beach which is just steps away from our room. We have had our hands full watching the crabs dig their holes and watching the tides rearrange the debris on the beach. We have decided that our entertainment for one day might be counting the coconuts. On December 28th, there was a seismic event, a small earthquake, in the Puerto Rico region. Unfortunately, this caused the currents to be too strong for David to go diving. We think that gives us an excuse to come back.

David's suggestion is we move here so that he can open up a dive shop. I said, if he gets to open up a dive shop then I get to open up a used book store. We've been working on the name all week. The best we have come up with is The Reader Reef. That name is growing on us for now. We have met a lot of people who have relocated here and they say that it is no more difficult than moving state to state since it is a territory of the United States so we haven't ruled anything out.

We also traveled to Old San Juan where we stayed for New Year's Eve. David did exceptionally well booking our hotel, we had a view of Christopher Columbus square from the window which is where all of the celebration took place, kind of like Times Square. Except rather than a ball dropping, they have a fireworks display and a stage set up for a concert. We had just enough time to walk to the fort. On our way, we took in a few of the sites of the old city. The buildings are incredible. Most of them are brightly colored and have beautiful grill work. There are many sculptures around the city that commemorate its history and are also a tribute to the artists. We had dinner at a Tapas restaurant which happened to be the oldest building in the city and at one point was used as the city hall. Where we were sitting used to be the part of the building that housed the prisoners.

Below is the final slideshow updated with all of our pictures. We are sure you will see why we can't wait to go back.

Our dog the cottonball

So we had a very large snowstorm recently--two feet here in Springfield. While I was very sick, Anne was a total trooper and went out and shovelled quite a bit during the storm so that on Sunday we only had to do a bit of work to be ready to leave our neighborhood when we got the chance. Zeldie had seen snow once before, but this time was very different. She absolutely loved playing it in for a while. At about noon, when the snow was about a foot, we went out with our neighbor Julie to the tennis courts to let Zeldie play around. She was running around, digging and eating the snow while we threw snow on her to get her riled up. This picture is from the end of the playtime, where the snow was almost completely covering her.

The problem arose later after the snow ended that evening. By that time, the show was up to her head. She didn't like that quite as much, as she had to essentially plow through the snow. She sorta crowd-surfed/hopped through the snow, which took quite a bit of effort. One big issue for her was that she couldn't find a place to poop. She didn't mind peeing in the snow, but she really wanted a piece of grond to poop on, and of course with two feet of snow everywhere, she couldn't smell that the ground was down there. She was walking with her head down sniffing for a good 10 minutes. Finally, on the middle of Hunter Village Drive, which is normally a fairly busy road next to our condo, she did her business. What a relief I am sure for her...

Nurse Zeldie

So I had two and half weeks off from work, with Anne having a solid two weeks...I was pretty sick on the Thursday and Friday before Christmas, and then it snowed a South Bend/Oswego amount of snow. While sick, Zeldie did not leave my side. I think she thought it was a lot of fun that her dad was home during the day, but when I wasn't playing with her and just laying on the couch she decided to join me. I pulled the the Ottoman close to me and she slept next to me with her body on the couch and her legs on the Ottoman. She was very distressed when I got up to get something to drink--she looked at me, let out a big sigh, and then rearranged herself deeper into the warm blanket.

We have a dog that thinks she is a person for sure...

Zeldie Horak-Litter Patrol

Cesar Milan says that all dogs should have a job. This helps them to feel well adjusted and therefore they have fewer behavior problems. Although Zeldie does not have the extreme behavior problems Cesar deals with, just the regular ones, chewing, jumping up. We have been contemplating what Zeldie's job might be so that she can fulfill her potential as a canine in this world.

This past week, we bought her a harness. This was because of Erin's suggestion while were were visiting her for Thanksgiving. It has been a wonder. Had I known the benefits of walking the dog with a harness, I never would have gotten a collar. In any case, the collar is a pretty deep Raspberry pink color, which I will admit was a bit difficult for David to swallow at first. But the only other color in the size and type we wanted was a steel gray which he and I both admitted made Zeldie look like a boy dog. When he looked at it that way, he perked up a bit about the color. David is, more than anything, willing to be the person he needs to be to do what is best for his family and for that, I find him to be truly incredible.

While it was a bit of adjustment for her at first, she was biting at it, while we were walking, she was peppy and bright almost as if she was proud of her new harness. It occurred to me she looked a little bit like one of those crossing guards with the vests on. So, on that walk, when she sniffed and sniffed and sniffed until she found her piece of litter and then looked back at me like she had found the pot of gold, rather than say, no, "off", I said "Thank you, Zeldie Horak, Litter Patrol,"and took the litter from her and added it to the deposit we had already made in the poop bag. And this went on with every piece of litter we found. Thus, Zeldie has now found her purpose in life.

Bizzaro Zeldie

We went to Erin's house for Thanksgiving this year. We were very excited that Zeldie would get the chance to spend three whole days with four other dogs including one Irish Terrier that is only a week older than her. I was a bit nervous about how she would behave so we spent a couple of weeks beforehand focusing intensely on "off" (the counters). But as it turned out, the other dogs proved to be quite a distraction for her, more so than what was going on in the kitchen or with the people for most of the time.

We did come to realize though, that Zeldie has absolutely no self-regulation. On Thursday she spent the entire day playing with Sam and long after all of the other dogs had fallen asleep on the floor, she was still wandering around seemingly not sure what to do with herself until she finally fell, a full 12 hours after we had let her out of her crate that morning, over exhausted on the floor.

We were also completely amused that Zeldie seemed reluctant to do her business in the backyard. This was perhaps the part of the trip that David and I were looking forward to the most, waking up and letting her out into the big fenced in backyard in the morning. No trudging around in the cold and near dark with a poop bag in hand. However, as it turned out, Zeldie is definitely a city dog. On a leash is how she learned to potty and on a leash is how she prefers to potty. It seems to her the backyard was an extension of the house and unless we left her out there for hours on end playing with the other dogs, she wouldn't potty and she never once pooped back there.

I think the thing that was most incredible was watching Zeldie and Bailey together. It seemed as different as they were in stature and looks, they had a lot of the same habits. I noticed how they both scratched their nose the same way with their long back leg which I have never seen another dog do in my life. They both loved to give kisses the same way too. David kept saying it was "Bizzaro Zeldie" like that episode of Seinfeld. In fact they were so much alike that we had a hard time convincing PJ at one point that there were actually two of them there until we showed him the two dogs together. One thing they did do very differently lay down to take a nap. Bailey circled her spot and then laid down tucking herself into a neat little Bailey ball. Zeldie, on the other hand, fell over in her spot sprawled on her back limbs askew and snout thrown back. She's is a wonder.

Above you'll find some video of Bailey and Zeldie together so that you can see if you can tell them apart. At times, it was difficult for us too.