Our German-born, Korean-raised dog is LOVING life in America. Well, more like he's loving life in the midwest. Lots of love from both sets of grandparents, more room to run than he's ever dreamed of, and plenty of places to swim (who knew dachshunds were water dogs?) Here's some of our favorite pics and videos of our time home (and yes, most of them are of Oskar. What can I say? For another few months at least, he's our only child!)
It did nothing but rain for our few days back in Indiana. But the dog that HATES rain LOVED the flooding!
Here's Oskar playing in the floodwaters with Buddy, my parents' German Shepherd/Husky mix. Buddy is only a year old but already 80 pounds, and when he gets running, you better watch out! You'll hear my screams quite clearly in this clip, as 80 pounds of wet dog ran past me and sprayed me with water.
My sister came up from Texas to visit, bringing her Pomeranian Chopper. Chopper is a very anti-social dog, but he did enjoy playing with Oskar at least a little bit (more than I can say for Chopper and Buddy!)
I've traveled all around the world, and there is still nothing more beautiful to me than an Indiana countryside. . .
We all know that Oskar has "little dog" syndrome. Nowhere was this more apparent than being in my parents' home with Buddy. Oskar wanted to do everything Buddy did, including eating out of his "big boy" dish. . .
After a few days in Indiana, we drove over across the state line to Illinois to stay with Jonathan's parents. Oskar was sad to leave behind my parents' house in the country (Jonathan's parents live on the outskirts of town), but he was ecstatic to go out to Jonathan's parents' farm. In fact, I don't know who was more excited: Jonathan or Oskar! We had a lot of fun riding tractors and shooting guns (although I did contact my friend who's an OB nurse to make sure shooting a gun wouldn't affect the baby's hearing before I agreed to go shooting--talk about a nervous mommy!) Jonathan posed me for this picture: pregnant, with a gun, on a tractor. This might be as white trash as you will ever see me. . .
Oskar got a kick out of chasing the four-wheeler around. All that training we've done to get him to STOP chasing cars, and then we encourage it by doing this. We have a lot to learn about being parents. ;)
The best thing about the farm? Another pond! Oskar only lasted about 2 minutes before he was in the water again. Before that, however, I got this shot of my two boys, imagining our retirement home. . .
Since we are planning on retiring here (although not for quite a few more years. . . the Air Force owns us for awhile), we wanted to at least do something to start making the land "ours." Jonathan's parents have started a garden and planted a few peach trees near the apple trees in the orchard. We added our two cents by planting two plum trees. Well, Jonathan planted them with his parents and I took pictures. ;)
Jonathan and I also planted trees back by the pond. The pond was recently dug out and re-filled so the area surrounding it is just dirt. Grass seed has been laid, but it's in desperate need of some landscaping! Here's a row of trees we planted, all different varieties.
This little tree all by itself was one I just HAD to have. It's a Japanese cherry blossom (see previous posts if you don't know my obsession with cherry blossoms). I'm hoping to have a whole area of cherry blossom trees in this section near the pond one day.
One last thing that's great about Illinois? Grandma's tennis practice! Jonathan's mom coaches tennis, and Oskar LOVED going out during practice to chase everyone's tennis balls around. After practice was over, he kept going. . . chasing the balls during Jonathan's game against his parents. I think this might be what heaven will look like for my little wiener dog. :)
But now, it's time to say good-bye and head out west. Thank you, everyone, for such a wonderful visit home! We had such a great time; can't wait to see you all again soon!
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