Merry Christmas Mom and Dad!

Part 1: The Plan

A couple of months ago we were talking about Christmas and what we should do for Mom and Dad. Rob mentioned that we should get them a puppy. I kind of laughed and thought..."no way could we get them a puppy. They'd kill us!" And then I thought about it a little bit more, and the idea sounded better and better each time I thought about it. As we discussed it we knew we needed a smaller breed of dog that they could travel with, and would be a great companion dog. One that would snuggle up and just love you, but also be happy and energetic too. Rob knew the best breed to get. A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. So, being the research guy he is, Rob looked up on the internet for a breeder to call and get more information. To our surprise, there was a breeder right here in Alpine! What were the chances of that? It was fate. However, I was still nervous about giving my foot-loose and fancy-free parents a puppy! I needed reinforcements, or atleast someone to share the blame if it went badly. So I called my siblings and talked it over to see what they thought about it. They were all for it except my one sister who had asked Dad about getting a puppy and was told "Hell no!" I don't blame her.

Part 2: Picking a puppy

After talking to the breeder we decided we needed to go see the puppies (the breeder had 9 to chose from!) to see what we thought and if it would be a good dog for them. So we bundled up the kids and my brother and his wife and headed over to see them. Our first impression was that the 3 parents (2 females and 1 male) were so sweet and didn't bark at all when we came to the door. Very good first sign. Then they started to bring in the puppies...all 9 of them. I kind of felt like we were in the 101 Dalmations movie...there were puppies and kids everywhere! A puppy for each of us to hold! How cool was that? The puppies were sooo sweet. We had a really hard time choosing just one. After 1.5 hrs of playing with the puppies we finally narrowed it down to 2, a boy and a girl. We couldn't decide between them...they were both so stinking cute! I said to Rob, "Maybe we should get both of them and keep one for us." (What was I thinking? We already had a dog! and 5 kids! I was drunk on puppy love!) Rob actually said "let's think about it". Whoa, we needed to get out of there...fast! We finally decided on the female thinking she might be a little smaller than the male, although the male was definitely cuter. After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, looks won over size and we decided on the male.

Part 3: The Surprise! (my favorite part :)

We decided we wanted to give my parents the puppy a little before Christmas to give them time to adjust to having a dog before company came for Christmas. So, we agreed on a day to deliver the puppy and to surprise mom and dad. My brother Matt arrived at their home before the rest of the crew and set the stage for the surprise. 

He sat my parents down on the couch and blindfolded them until we arrived at their home. Then we came in and presented the gift!

(Due to major technical difficulty, or I should say major technical retardedness of the blogger, the sound on the video isn't working :(  But hopefully you get the idea) I posted this video on my Facebook page and the sound works...so go there for the full viewing experience :)

Meet Duke Albus Wilfric Percival Brian Dumbledore Hansen...

They'll call him Duke for short

Can we just say  "Love at first sight?" 

Mom says this was the last thing she expected, 

but is "warming up to him".  :>