Christmastime!

With the holidays comes joy and happiness..along with a little stress. Before I go talking about my adventures with Chanel to PA, I must take the time to share with you all about the gift exchange Jonathan and I had. He and I are very set in our families' Christmas traditions, so we do not spend Christmas together. Therefore, we exchange gifts early with the rest of his family in Dover. He got me a 32" Panasonic flat screen TV, a $90 gift card so we can go get our nails done (be jealous ladies...my boyfriend is going to the salon with me), and a car part that somehow fell off of my car and needed to be replaced. Kudos to me for putting it on all by myself, if I lose it again we will know why. I had his favorite panoramic photo that he took of the Las Vegas skyline blown up to a 12"x7' print. And yes I mean 7 FEET. Then I cut a piece of wood and stained it for the backing. I had my grandpa laminate it, and then finally, I cut and stained wooden trim to nail around the photo as a frame. It was interesting trying to fit that, my puppy, other gifts, and myself into my Milan, but I did it! One more piece of information...on Christmas day I woke up to let Chanel out and was sitting in the living room when my mom gave me a card that Jonathan sent up with her for me to open on Christmas day. It was complete with a list of 101 reasons why he loves me (yet another reason why I think I am the luckiest girl in the world). Of course I cried and looked like a fool but I didn't care. What a great start to an awesome day!

My snow jacket!

Now I get to be a proud momma and tell you about how GREAT Chanel did on our trip up to PA. I was so nervous about how this was all going to go down. Chanel had never been on a trip over 2 hours long, and we have never attempted to stay at someone's house for three days. But, to my surprise, she was fantastic. We started off the day bright and early Saturday morning. I took her for a nice long walk to try and tire her out. Then I packed up all of our things. And I thought I had a lot of luggage...we had to bring the kennel, the baby gate, her food, her water, her leash, her clothes, and her toys. Make fun all you want, but Chanel is a cutie when it comes to her little clothes and she likes them so back off! Plus, she gets cold very easy and starts to shiver so she needs a coat when she is outside. Once we packed everything up in the car, we put her bed in and she hopped up and laid next to me for the trip. She would doze off every now and again but any bump, turn, or stop caused her to sit up and look around. She only had to stop twice on the way up and once on the way back during a 5-6 hour car ride. I think that is great when you compare it to when she needed/wanted to stop ever 20 mins when she was younger.

during the car ride

My grandparents live on the side of a mountain so there is not much grass around. Chanel had one patch of grass next to my grandparent's house, that is about as big as my office, to do her business on. I can't get her to pee when we visit Josh and Carrie in Wilmington to save my life so I was not looking forward to trying to get her to go in this tiny spot for three days. I figured that eventually she would have to cave in and except that this is her area. By golly she got it right away! Of course, she wanted to check out what was on the side of the mountain so she would constantly try to walk down the side, but other than that she was awesome. I had to take her out every few hours which isn't unusual for her, especially in a new place. When you compare that to the fact that when she is at Jonathan's house she wants out every 10 minutes, I will take every few hours any day.

My Christmas outfit!

To make the weekend even more of a success, she never made a mess in the house! I brought spot remover and a whole roll of paper towels just in case and I didn't have to use them once! I think she is finally getting the hang of this peeing outside thing. She was also privileged to be graced by the presence of one of my grandparent's two cats. The other cat is smart enough to stay away. But Buffy, the cat, could not resist the temptation of seeing what this new creature is. Buffy did not have a positive first encounter with a dog...Chanel. Chanel is terrified of cats. We know this from her experience with Josh and Carrie's cat, Christmas Cat...yes that is its name. That explanation is for another time. When Chanel saw Buffy she growled like I have never heard her growl before and you would have thought she instantly grew a mohawk with all the hair she has down the center of her back. I mean it was straight up! ^^^^^^^^^ (that is my attempt at a visual). So of course, Buffy ran away. Well, Chanel decided to walk back down the hall and look down the little hole (the cat door) that led to the basement. To her surprise, and terror, this cat was looking back at her and she darted off. For the rest of the weekend, Chanel was terrified to walk down that hallway by herself. She would not go unless someone else was walking through as well. And every time she passed that door she stared at it intently.

My new collar from Aunt Allison!

On the way home I misread her pathetic whimper for "I need to pee" when it was really "I want to stretch/move" So, my mom graciously and quickly pulls over to the side of the road where we thought there was a strip of grass next to the mountain. O no no no...it was a strip of bristles and whatever other pointer thorny weeds you can think of. Thankful Chanel had her schweater on and all of the prickles attached to that instead of cutting up her belly. Lucky me, I had to pick prickles off my sweat pants for the next half hour because they were all of me. Guess that's what I get for not knowing what she wanted and assuming PA has grass on the sides of their roads. Don't even get me started on the fact that less than 2 mins down the road there was a pull off section with lovely green grass next to it.

Chanel taking up the whole couch

We made it home safe and sound and my stress and worry of bringing my puppy on vacation could subside. I just couldn't seem to relax during our trip because I assumed that as soon as I let my guard down she would prove me wrong and do something she shouldn't. Maybe next time I can calm down a little. I think this post is getting a little lengthy so I will cut myself off here and fill you in on more another time.

Until next time...