Up to our eyeballs in dogs, life

New changes in the Urben household this week. For starters, we have "aquired" a new family member, Abby. Abby is a 5 month old, 30 pound Golden Retriever, White Lab mix. Abby and her sister Ally (formerly Lily and Lisa) were surrendered to a local shelter by their owner, who was moving in to an apartment and could no longer keep these two precious sisters. It just so happens that our good friends, the Fords, have been looking for a golden for quite some time and jumped at the chance to get these girls. However, their interest in a golden stopped at 1. They adopted them both, with the plan that they could convince the Urben suckers to take on one and the sisters would not be entirely separated afterall. And now we officially have "sucker" tatooed on our foreheads, and a sweet little-big Abby to prove it. ;) Do they know us well or WHAT?

She's gettig along well with the other dogs and making progress with crate training. She is just the sweetest most precious little pup. Now that I have found my battery charger for my camera, I can take some pictures of her to post.

Let the crazy dog people comments begin!

As far as the human Urbens go, we are all doing well; Mark is enjoying his freedom from the big "D" and keeping busy with laundry, housework, golf, lunches with friends and some occasional handyman work. He's done some work for Joe and Bill, and just this week he put up a mailbox for Nana and Big Daddy's rent house, which led to another neighbors request to fix theirs as well. So far, Mark seems to be enjoying his new found freedom and working with his hands has proved to be very theraputic.

My new job is going well; I just completed my first project, and look forward to more work next week. Finding the time to fit in the new job has gone fairly smooth so far. I feel much more at ease now that I've let the cat out of the bag and informed my other boss of my new job. He was very supportive and appreciated me letting him know.

I just took my first test at school, which I'm pretty positive about. Algebra is much more interesting this time around, I'm actually ENJOYING it. I suppose growing up has helped a bit.

We're hoping to make a trip out to Nana and Big Daddy's next weekend, since the kiddos have off from school the following Monday. (yes, we're inviting ourselves Dad and Ruthie!)

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's all I have time for right now. I'll update with pictures at some point.

Grannie Franny....in case you're wondering and haven't spoke to Mark yet, Abby was named in memory of your sweet girl by Miss Ashley. The name fits her well.