Angel!

***Announcement:

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of winning W.I.B.I.J. for the 3rd time in a row!!! There will be another competition soon...please come and try to dethrone me. I know you competitive types are out there!

So it's about time I updated you guys on our crazy wild weekend adventures. All of them starring Angel, the new addition to our family!

Here's the story with Angel. We've been wanting to get a family dog for a while now...one especially good with children, the most important thing. We also wanted something manageable in size...preferably that could fit in our Honda civic, the biggest car we've got! This made it hard, considering most kid-friendly dogs are actually quite big. Well, on Friday I went and took a look at the local shelter's 'adoptable' pets and came across Angel- a 2 year old golden retriever mix, about 45 lbs. I was in love.

We went to see her on Saturday and I wanted her the minute I saw her. She is unbelievably sweet, and just a gorgeous dog. She looks just like a full blooded golden retriever, only slightly smaller. We got her and took her home with us!

She is absolutely perfect in every way, from the minute we got her home. She's calm, great with the kids, affectionate, and never barks. She never peed or pooped on my floor and asked to go out by licking my hand in the middle of the night. She was the best. dog. ever.

That is until yesterday.

Sunday morning rolled around and I woke up and let her out and brushed her...things were going great. Some friends of mine decided to come over and meet Angel, so I went to the store before them came. When I got home from the store, I see my husband on the sidewalk with the kids and my friends (who had just arrived) and they tell me that Angel just escaped.

Have any of you guys seen the movie Marley and Me? I swear the next 10 hours were something straight out of that movie. We chased her all over the neighborhood for hours. At one point we even had some random dude on a bike chasing her with us...not to mention me in a car and about 5 people on foot. None of us could catch her. Homegirl is fast.

At one point some random neighbor came out of his house with an entire block of cheese trying to entice her. We had a neighbor (an owner of a golden retriever) notify his 'dog walking group' (those exist??) and all of THEM joined in the chase...and they were all still out there at around 9 pm, calling her name.

She was lost for about 10 hours. We were so tired and upset- and we'd done all we could think of to try and find her. Right before bed we decided to open the front door and look...just one more time.

And there she was. Sitting on the doorstep, covered in mud. She'd come home.

YAY! So now I have my doggie back, my kids aren't freaking out anymore, my husband doesn't feel guilty for losing her, and I have tons of inspiration for children's books now! In the end, a very productive weekend indeed.