Bee-dle Juice, Bee-dle Juice, Bee-dle Juice!!

Originally Bee's name was going to be Aoife - I had researched names trying to find something dignified and a little unusual. It's a gaelic name that means "joyous, beautiful" and is the name of a warrior princess in legend who freaking wins everything. But before I committed  I gave it a test run and quickly realized that it sounds very much like "Ava". The other problem was pronouncing it based on the old irish spelling - there are a lot of lovely old irish names but unless you're from Ireland or the late 1700's chances are the rest of the population is going to mangle the crap out of it on a daily basis. When we used to go to the beach back on LI there was a little girl who's name was Y'aile - it was a lovely french name - unfortunately no one who frequented the beach happened to be french. You always knew when she was around because you'd hear this little voice saying "NO, my name is not Yale! It's YA- aile!" - I'm sure at some point in her life she has given up and is now a lovely woman named Yale. But I digress. I hung in there thinking maybe I could use the american spelling??, but that is no longer the romantic Aoife, but Ee-Fa. yeah, no.

But then the breeder had sent me a few short videos of a white pawed puppy zipping around nosie-rosie - I had to laugh and that is how her name instantly became 

Bee. 

It's turned out to be a very appropriate name - she is bouncy, zipping around at all times. And it's one of those fun names - Busy Bee. Bumble Bee. Bee-nie. Beedelia. Bee-a-roni. Bee-dle Juice. I can go on and on. Having a puppy in the house is a lot of fun and quite exhausting at times. Her first project was to try and electrocute herself by chewing on wires. David suggested NO and a squirt bottle. I pointed out squirting a dog with water while they chewed on a wire was probably just going to kick it up a notch and suggested maybe just putting the wires up til she got older. With the girls visiting that added a whole other dimension as I pulled Polly Pockets out of her mouth for the 400th time along with crayons, barbie, and other sundry items. We spent days with no one leaving anyone alone but they all had fun. The girls loved Bee and Bee loved them. Christmas evening Bee got sick - I think it was because there was so much food she did get some and just a lot going on. She had awful going every hour diarrhea - she does not want to go in the house so she'd cry and out we would go. Again and again. 

She is better now, she's been to the vet and has medication, despite all the diarrhea she somehow managed to grow anyhow and gained 3 pounds. She is eating everything at this point, the vet suggested rice, yogurt, chicken and bone broth - I have little hope of her ever eating regular dog food again. She is growing so fast she will be a dog in no time - and we are so happy to have a dog in the house again, let me tell you! A dog just adds so much to your day - someone to play with, walk with, snuggle in the morning. David has started training her so she can be a great gun dog and I'm hoping in the spring to find somewhere to start hiking again. We have a lot wrapped up in you Little Bee. 

 

Busy Bees.

So the past 3 weeks have been busy busy! Our Bee is a great joy to us of course, a lot of work she is but so nice to have a dog back in the house. We had planned previously on having the girls here for the week - had not thought the 2 four year olds and a puppy thing out. Hmm. I picked them up on Saturday morning, they were great on the way back and ran around over the top excited for the first few hours. The first day was rough - Bee was jumping and biting, the girls were shrieking, which made Bee crazier....ARRGH. But by the next afternoon everyone was better. The harder parts were keeping all the little toys from Bee, teaching the girls not to feed her.... but we got it done. C and D are very fun this year - both are super into arts and crafts so it was a Crafty Christmas!

We did cookie baking and you can do that sucessfully with preschoolers - the secret is to have everything out at once - if you turn your back on them to get the flour they'll polish off a full bottle of sprinkles before you can say STOP and knock everything on the floor. Use cups to cut out the cookies - they seriously do NOT expect to be doing reindeer and santas and it's too hard for them, a circle is very do-able. We did a simple sugar cookie dough with colored sugar and sprinkles, it went very well. We also did a construction paper chains, we made lions with glue on googly eyes, played Candy Land in which they shamelessly cheat, declared themselves the winner and leave. We went to a playground in town where we were the only people in the park - it was like playing in Cherobyl but they had a full 45 minutes of running around. The neighbor stopped by one day on his tractor, D was devestated when no one got a ride but Poppop saved the day by pulling out the lawn tractor and they rode down to Mr. Sam's to visit the cows and horses. 

Brandy arrived on Christmas Eve - they were very excited to see her after almost a week apart from her. Kim and Steve arrived along with Celia, Gabe and then there were four dogs in the house! Bee was having a great time romping with a crew of tiny dogs and yes, we did observe COVID guidelines, we were less than ten, two households. I broke out the china - I have a full set of Noritake circa 1961 in the sputnik design and we had a wonderful dinner. Celie and Gabe have never seen the house so they got the Grand Tour, we had a big ham and a tofurky roast - it felt like a real holiday.  The next morning it was  mayhem - C &  D are at that age and it only took about 10 minutes for the living room to turn into a sea of wrapping paper and toys, with occasional  chasing Bee to get back contaband. I made lasanga for dinner since we'd done the Christmas ham the previous day and then it was bath time. 

It was a good day.

Saturday early afternoon they packed up and left since we all have to go back to work on Monday. 

During this Bee developed diarrhea - we spoke to the vet on Saturday and gave Bee Pepto to see if it would help - it did a little but she continues to have bouts of it so she will see the vet tomorrow. It's been exhausting, she does not want to go in the house so we are up and down with her throughout the night. She's still eating,drinking and playing so hopefully it will be something that passes soon. So, but aside from that its been a wonderful week and holiday - such a relief after all that's happened   this year. 

 

The Covid-bury Tales

Last week we finally got our puppy - She started off in Colorado, Jeff met Daniel in Utah to transfer the puppies (he picked up a total of 5!), then off to Washington arriving Saturday night. We live about 5 hours from Jess which is where they were being dropped off before all the prospective owners arrived to Moses Lake. They were very well traveled puppies by then. Since I knew ahead of time the when and where's I took Monday off knowing we would not get home til Sunday afternoon. Then I made the reservations which can be a little dicey when you've never been somewhere. Fortunately there were some major chain hotels - sometimes it's fun to stay in a non-national brand but we have also had some interesting stays in places that looked straight out of pyscho type movie set. I made the reservation online ( and if you have AAA - use it! You can get some pretty good discounts). But then I called the next day, worried that they might be closed due to COVID - I was obviously not the first person double checking because the desk clerk was yes, we're open, yes you have to wear a mask, yes, we still have breakfast.......

 

We left early Saturday morning and decided to take a secondary road since we've never been to that part of country, the first part was really fun. We drove through all sorts of small towns, the weather was good for the first part of the trip, but.......here is much different than the east coast. In NY if it's cold on LI, it's cold upstate, if there's snow upstate, there's snow in PA,etc..... When we left Clatskanie it was sunny and in the 50's but as we drove the temperature went down and it got all icy and rainy. One thing we had not realized was our road wound through the Cascade mountain range so we were driving in 23 degree foggy weather up and down mountain roads. Along with this we were going through some major ski resorts. On a Saturday where it is madatory that everyone out to ski must spend at 30 minutes standing around in the road admiring each other's ski equipment. Suffice to say that was not fun. 

We were glad to get done with the mountain ranges - it flattened out and on we went. We stopped at a rest area and I forgot my mask in the car, but it was still pretty early. Of course someone came in the bathroom and it was a super strict person who when I went by her acted as if I had committed a crime against humanity - 😨

The rest of the trip was uneventful - COVID makes weird because you can't stop at a restaurant, every time you get out of the car you have to mask up, etc... we arrived at the hotel with the desk clerk stationed behind a giant sneeze guard, checked in. The pool was a waste, only one person allowed at a time(?), what ever! We had brought food and our coffee gear with us - the coffee gear of course most important. I have a mini kureg, coffee creamer and sweetener I bring so we don't have to get up too early. Dinner was take out - I feel terrible for all the restaurants - it's stupid really. We can fly on planes, etc.. but we can't sit in a restuarant? We went in, ordered, sat and waited while chatted with the woman behind the cash register - there were only two people running the place! We left a good tip and back to our room. I went out for a little while, it was ok. We made it Jess's first thing in the morning , so glad to finally have a dog back in our house!