Can you say Epic 72 Hours?

Wow. I thought after Saturday we would have a good little blog to post, but no. We are too awesome for our own good. There also might be a lot of paraphrasing for some of the days since there was too much good stuff.

Saturday

It was a beautiful day, so Jenny and I took it upon ourselves to take care of the weeds that I believe were overtaking the property. After a few hours of pulling weeds in the sunshine and eventually filling our yard debris bin, we took a break and had lunch. The night before, I went to go play shuffleboard with some guys from my fraternity while Jenny was at her softball games. While we were there, my friend Trent and I talked about how our dogs should get together and play, especially since Hank never plays with other dogs. So after we were done pulling weeds, I gave Trent a call and we set up a puppy play date! Jenny and I drove over to Trent's house and as soon as Hank saw the other dog, it was go time. Full on whining, pulling and overwhelming excitement. We walked the dogs close to each other so they had enough time to "get acquainted" before we got to a nearby park. Prior to this whole play date, Jenny and I were SUPER nervous given Hank's turbulent past with other dogs. However, once those two dogs were off the leashes, they were so happy to be playing with each other (especially Hank). Trent's dog is a Springer Spaniel, so she absolutely ran Hank to death, which was great. After a good afternoon of playing with each other and chasing tennis balls, Jenny and I were SO proud of Hank. We both finally knew it would be alright to get another dog when the time came.

Sunday

We had no plans this weekend, so we decided to run errands and go house hunting (since it's getting to end of our lease). We do this pretty often because you never know when the new rental signs will be out. Our plan is to move more halfway between our schools so we both can share the commute and gas bill, instead of me getting just hammered on both (I promise I'm not bitter). Like most house hunting days, we had barely any prospects and like most days, were on our way back home. However, I thought I would give these neighborhoods up in Multnomah Village a try. That is the wonderful thing about these house hunts: we get incredibly lost, drive around and look at houses until we find a familiar road. While driving through Multnomah Village, we saw this small rental sign pointing to this dead end street. Peeking down the road, this neighborhood had a lot going for it: very quiet, lots of trees, big yards, and it was definitely more halfway between our schools. While Jenny and I were looking, we found out the owners lived next door and were actually doing work on the house, so we got to go inside and take a look. Our house right now is pretty modern, has almost too much space and is kind of spread out. This house was honestly perfect. It was an older house, so it had a lot of charm and a lot of original design to it (like original hardwood floors, windows, etc.). The best part was not only was this house at the end of a dead end road, it was on a 1/4 acre, was one level and was everything Jenny and I wanted. The owners were nice and offered us an application, which we quickly filled out. As Jenny put the completed application into their mailbox, she noticed there were other applications in there, which made us a little nervous. How many were there? Would other people be better candidates because they are older? At that point, all we could do is just wait and hope. After we were done with the application, we stopped by the store to pick up some groceries and headed over to my mom's for a ravioli dinner.

Monday (Today)

Neither of us slept. It was hotter than hell last night. Both Jenny and I were dragging as we left the house this morning. Both of us had equally terrible days but luckily, we both were able to come straight home. After seeing that house and realizing how much closer I could be to work if we lived there, Beaverton traffic stressed me out. "Damn it. Just think if we had that house. I would be home by now!" I got home around 4pm and went directly to bed for a nap. Jenny, of course, followed me in and laid next to me. We were talking about our days and afterward, Jenny said she did not think we had a very good chance of getting the house. She said it was just a gut feeling, like it was too good to be true. At this point, I'm dazing off to sleep.

15 minutes later, Jenny's cell phone rings. Like I said, I was comotose on the bed and didn't make sense of anything happening around me. I hear sounds of Jenny talking, but can't make out words. All of a sudden...

*Tap tap tap* on my shoulder.

"Ryan, the landlord said the house is all ours! They said everything checked out and it's ours if we want it!"

As you could probably put together, we both were psyched. The landlord would be at the house for another hour and wanted to know if we wanted to come walk through it again. This got my attention, so it was out of bed for me and over to our potential new home. We did some measurements of our furniture, took it to the house and realized the house was actually much bigger than we originally thought. To make a long story short (and I know it's lengthy - sorry), we are set for the house! Our set move-in day is Saturday, June 13th: the day after school is out. Our landlords are kind of funny and as Jenny put it, "They remind me of people from Philomath". They have chickens, don't like to use chemicals on their plants and are pretty resourceful people. So resourceful that they are going to build a small fence in the backyard for Hank so we don't have to be nervous about him being out by himself.

So in the span of 48 hours, we found a house we liked, then landed a house that we now absolutely love. Jenny believes it was fate, and I can't really disagree with her. I guess that's what we get for kicking so much ass.

Holy Monsoon Wolverine!

Ryan and I decided to have ourselves an eventful Saturday, for the most part. We, well more me, have been looking at adoptable dogs since we do plan on getting Hank a playmate come summer and a new house. Although we have agreed that we will not get another dog until summer, we still enjoy going and looking every once in a while. This morning we found a dog named Simon, who is a Treeing Walker Coonhound, and he was cute as a button, so we decided to see him today. After we had performed our morning rituals we headed to East Portland to the Pixie Project to see Simon. Sadly, when we arrived we were told that Simon is actually living with a foster family because he was overly excitable in their doggy daycare environment, so we couldn't meet him that day. The man working there gave us a lot of information about Simon and he definitly would need some more training....and that he bays....a lot. Ryan and I both agree that a noisy dog is no dog for us, and although you could probably train him not to bay, he is a purebreed hound and it's his nature. Thank goodness for our quiet hound dog is all I have to say.

After the disappointment at Pixie Project we headed back to Beaverton to PetSmart, who hosts adoption events every other Saturday. We saw some cute puppies and cute teenager dogs and got licks from them all. None of them gave us the "Hank vibe", as in we didn't fall in love right away. And don't you worry, we don't fall in love with any dog, they have to be cute and have the personality we are looking for. Being just cute doesn't cut it. Once we had our fill of doggy interactions for the day we decided we were hungry and enjoyed some Red Robin. We both really wanted to see the new X-Men Origins and it opened yesterday, so after lunch we went. Let me tell you, it was good. I had heard a lot of bad reviews, but I don't know what they are talking about. It was as good as the others, and it answered questions the other movies never answered. Also, it was all about Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, and we all know I LOVE him. The highlight of the movie was when he was NAKED! Ha ha ha, just kidding, although that was nice. If you have seen the other three movies though, go see this one. It's totally worth the money.

When we got home we thought, hey let's take Hank out for a nice long walk. Well, that was quickly put to a halt. No more than 2 minutes after we got home it started raining and then the hurricane/monsoon hit. I am not kidding, I have NEVER seen it rain and blow as hard as it was. It actually knocked down the 6' wooden fence of the people two houses down. It was insane. Our backyard instantly flooded, our lights kept flickering, but didn't go out, and our internet got knocked out. Oh and there was horrible thunder. It sounded like the sky was going to eat us. That lasted probably 10-15 minutes and then blue skies. So, we played a game of Scrabble and took Hank on the walk we talked about.

Well, that was our day. It was exciting and fun. I can't wait until we get a new puppy!