Lucky Number 3

Hey guys,

I'm so bummed that I'm not going to be able to come up to Boston to see everyone. Unfortunately I've just had a lot of changes lately and can't afford to right now. School sucks right now, we're getting to the really difficult part of nursing school. The part everyone says is hell. They aren't lying. Anyway, about my new changes.  A few weeks ago I decided I was done with vet work. I'm not being treated well and things have gone down hill really quick at the clinic. I started looking for a new job, but none of the places I looked at would really be able to give me the hours I needed for school. Then outta the blue, came the job of my dreams. I went to agility class like I do every thursday night, and the trainer, who I am pretty good friends with started talking to me about people who have been trying to apply for a job there. I asked if they were hiring and she said yes, and asked if I was looking for a job. I said yes and we talked after agility class. My first day was on sunday. I will start out in kennel and work my way up to a training position. In a few months I will probably start to teach a puppy obedience class and will eventually start doing adult obedience and agility classes. Its the job I have wanted for months. I will be working under the supervision of a professional dog trainer, recognized by the IACP for 22 years. I am very excited to learn from her and finally be able to start off in the career that I want. I will also get to train my dogs for free and get food at cost :).  I seriously cannot wait to start learning. I have not put my notice into the clinic yet, I am waiting to see what my hours will be at the gym, but I really cannot wait to be done with the clinic. 

So our next big change is the arrival of Nova!

We had not really planned to get another dog so soon after getting Tide, but Nova seemed to just plop into our laps. A trainer friend of mine tagged me in her photo when she found out about her. Her foster mom was looking for a performance home for her because she showed so much drive and ability to be able to be amazing. I met her August 20th and we took her home for adoption trial that night. I had been telling you guys that I wanted a border collie to complete our dog family, and I had already reserved one from a future litter of my two favorite trainers dogs, Riff and Dante. And I still may get one from their litter if they have one in two or three years. But sometimes you just find destiny. Nova is 8 months old and incredibly smart. We have already started obedience training and will start Rally Obedience in a few months. I like to start a dog in rally to increase their focus on me. Maddie didn't really need it because she was so focused on me anyway, but for a wiggle butt like Nova, I am definitely going to get her into rally. Nova and I have been playing frisbee everyday that it hasn't rained.. she is incredible. Once I learn how to throw properly, she will probably be 100% on her catches. She is too young to start vaulting and jumping like you see the dogs do on TV, but once she is around 18 months to two years, I will start teaching her leg and back vaults. For now we are focusing on learning tricks on the ground. She has learned go around, drop, weave through my legs and back up through my legs. 

Nova playing frisbee

Here's a video of us playing around a little bit last week. My main focus right now is to build her drive for the frisbee and make her love it. The more she loves it, the better she will be.

Nova and I playing around

Maddie competed in two dock diving competitions labor day weekend. She competed in her first Ultimate Air Dogs competition where she set a new personal best of 18'4 and won 6th place in the finals!! The next day we competed in The Canine Ranch's Fall Dive In where she won 2nd place in Catch-It and came in 6th in the finals. She did very well and I am so happy about her new personal best. We also helped raise $90 for Maddie's rescue. People placed bets on how far they thought Maddie would jump that weekend and the closest guess would win a sweatshirt from the rescue. We will keep doing fundraisers like this for her rescue for every competition that she competes in. 

Maddie and her trophy

We always love competing at The Canine Ranch, all of our friends from dog sports in one place competing for fun and for the love of our dogs, its so much fun. 

Our family :)

Love this one lol, Nova is such a ham

Well guys, I hope yall have fun in Boston! I hope we can do something like that soon! I miss you guys and hope you are all having a wonderful semester and are enjoying yourselves! 

Bri

Hiya!

I hope all of you are having a great new semester so far.  I just started graduate school – I’m doing the advanced standing Masters of Social Work program at Florida State U part-time.  It is such a huge honor to get into this program because it’s a small cohort and is one of the best SW programs in the country (way better than UCF) so I am already being challenged by the work load even though it is part time.  I haven’t started my full time job yet so I’m still nannying and doing Pampered Chef in the mean time (I’ll tell you all about the job when it becomes official).  We moved alllll of our stuff into Bran’s parent’s house who live pretty close from where we used to live while we were on vacation so that we saved all of our expenses for August while we were gone (no rent/cable/energy/water bills, etc.) and put that towards the trip!! Our old lease ended the day after we left for Europe and we wanted to leave that complex anyway so it was perfect!  We’re staying here until Oct. 7^th when our new lease begins… we’re downsizing to a 1 bedroom flat downtown and we’re sooo excited about it because the location will be amazing (which is why it’s so dang expensive and we’re downsizing).  We’ll both be so close to work, church, our friends, and all of the fun things to do in Orlando.  A little farther from the Beach but we haven’t been doing that much lately anyway.  We have two pools and two hot tubs– that’ll do J  So that’s what we’re working on the next few weeks: lots of transition! Into a new home, new town (still part of Orlando), new jobs, new routine.  Same amazing husband, though!  And actually… please be praying that the stinking NBA lockout will end so that the hiring freeze will END and my sweet husband can move from 20-30 hours a week to full time.  When this happens we’ll get season tickets to games, too, so we’re super excited about that J

I will now take you all through our trip to Europe…there are literally hundreds of pictures uploaded on facebook but here are some highlights.  I’m also working on creating a new travel blog.  It’s mostly just a scrapbook for us to remember exactly where we’ve been and what we did.  In addition, I want it to be a help to my friends that go to these places so they can see what I loved and didn’t love about each city – I documented every restaurant, site, gelateria, etc. that we hit and my reviews that I think will be helpful for friends/family and for us in the future when we go back.

I’ve realized through this trip how strong my passion is for travel.  I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to see so many places at such a young age and that I married someone who loves to travel too!  We’ve decided from the beginning of our relationship that travel is a financial priority to us.  We’d rather live on a tight budget day to day and save up for trips.  We also don’t do gifts for each other but instead we do something together like go skydiving or go on a trip, etc.  For our anniversary this year we’re planning on going to NYC for the weekend and staying with my close family friends in Jersey so Bran can see where I grew up and we can do all the fun stuff in the city as well.  Next year we’re going to try to make it back to Europe in the fall and we’ll stay with some friends we met on our trip that live in Belgium.  We really enjoyed meeting all of these other travelers when we were in Europe and learning how we all live differently. 

8/9 London

8/10 Hitchin

8/11 Cambridge

8/12 London à Glasgow

8/14 Glasgow à Edinburgh

8/15 St. Andrews

8/17 Edinburgh à Rome

 

8/19-8/26 RomeàCivitavecchia for the Cruise

            Genoa, Italy

            Cannes (MonteCarlo), France

            Ajaccio, Corsica
            Barcelona, Spain

           

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

8/26 Civitaveccia à Florence

8/27 Florence à Venice

8/27 Cruise

            Dubrovnik, Croatia

           

           Athens & Piraeus, Greece

            Izmir (Ephesus), Turkey

            Split, Croatia

9/3 Venice

9/4 Rome à Orlando

I cannot stinking wait to see you girls in Boston!  Only 41 days away – weeee!  Miss yall!

-KK