Oskar

Dear Oskar,
   I am sorry if you have developed a complex about your lack of golden/orange color - I blame the other three golden's who we have forced you to socialize with - if you need therapy, I understand. It's okay to be different. You however have also give the three large golden's a complex about being teacup size. Note, you aren't a lap dog, I know you want to be, I try to be,  and you love to snuggle up, but you may in fact weigh more than my human. My humans seem to like when we snuggle in close and allow them they joy of petting us. I think you have rejoiced at the cooler temps that have made their way through our area. I am sorry I laughed at your first attempts at swimming at the lake with us, I could see it in your eyes how much you longed to be swimming with us, but apparently you are much more of wader - you get just past your chest and not move another inch deeper, however you happily frolicked and chased the balls a midst the shallow water and played with me in the shallows.
    Speaking of water, I am impressed by your ability to drink your own weight in water, seriously, I am impressed. Never did I imagine how much water you could consume, well done wonderbernard, well done. You love the dog park, I am glad we could share such a fabulous place with you. You, like me, have the humans trained to brush me when they sit down outside - it does in fact feel delightful. You are great to have around, I love having four legged friends to play with all day. Congrats on rapidly training the humans in the house, particularly Marc, you nailed how to get him to share his food and save the butts of the bread for you, I am impressed at your speed of training the humans.
     I am saddened you will be leaving us this week, but I am sure your humans have missed you. I shall rejoice in our last couple of days playing together, come back and visit me soon.
Love,
   Dakota

1. 

Back in the saddle

Summer has been crazy to say the least.

• I got married
• took 5 trips for work
• had my colleague on vacation for a month
• put my house on the market
• had a full ministry schedule
• co-directed a camp
• and a few more things here and there

I am thankful fall is around the corner (the kids are going back to school...whoooooop whooooooooop) and I am staying home for a while. I love being out and about. I love traveling for work and the opportunities it provides. I love my call. I also love being home and the routine of fall. I love knowing what is coming next and how things will flow. I love that people are around and the tourists are gone. I now am looking forward to the normalcy (as much as my job ever has) for the rest of the month. I think towards the end of the month I have several days of comp time that I am hoping to sneak away for a few days to go to Boundary Waters Canoe Area, but we'll see how that all plays out.

Our house is sort of going to be a revolving door for the next month and a half or so. We have Dakota's best friends, Gus and Luther, until Sunday. Oskar the wonderbernard comes on Saturday until the 21st of August. Then on August 20, Kevin, Martha, and Petzl (the black lab), are coming to stay until mid-September while life is in transition for them. It will be crazy but ridiculously fun month. Bring on dog-a-palooza and other such madness. Truthfully though we are blessed by having friends come and stay with us and we are thrilled to watch friend's dogs, we love them and Dakota thinks she has died and gone to heaven.

In the mean time we continue to have our house on the market - I am becoming less and less optimistic it is going to sell any time soon. Our showings have become much less frequent and we seem to be stuck at square one. Who knows. We continue to pray it sells and try to not look at houses online. I have found a couple that I am interested in but they have all sold and are now off the market. I have decided to not look at houses online again until our house at least gets an offer that we can even mildly consider. 

Goals for the rest of August:

1. Get ready for fall at work
2. Go through 4 boxes in the attic
3. Get spare bedroom cleaned out so our month long guests have plenty of space
4. don't get behind on Wine and Dine Training
5. Finish summer ministries photobook
6. kayak 4 more times
7. apply for my new passport
• I find it ridiculous that you have to pay a crap ton to replace your passport - which is still valid. blah blah blah. I am over this name change crap and companies that make it ridiculously hard to change my name. 
8. clean out bedroom closet
• Donate clothes that I don't need
• move some of the excess things that don't necessarily belong in my closet to the attic space

     ***Bonus goals*** 

• finish part 1 of our honeymoon photobook
• crochet a hat
• make a baby gift for a friend
• write three letters just because I can
• send a care package to someone for no reason
• try a couple new recipes
• finish a pinterest project I started last May

What is on your list of goals for the rest of the month?

Are you traveling anywhere fun the rest of August?

Do you use pinterest? love it or hate it?