We have not decided on a name for our new puppy yet. We’ll wait to give him a name until we can see his personality. When we go back to play with the puppy in a couple of weeks, maybe we’ll think of a name.
After telling some people about our news of getting a dog, I realized many of you may wonder why we are getting a dog when we are in an apartment and living abroad in the military community. Even if you’re not wondering, we want to share our thought process over the past couple of months with you.
John and I have talked a great deal about plans for the future:
“Oh, when we get out of the military, we can get a new car.”
“When we get out, we will start working on this.”
etc.
It was like we were putting our life on hold because of our situation. We decided we didn’t need to wait to get a dog. It may be hard to have a lab in our apartment, and yes, we’ll have to carry him down from the 3rd floor every time he has to go outside until he’s 6 months old (to protect his growing puppy hips). However, it’s far more important to us to start living our lives, taking care of an animal and loving on it, and move forward rather than waiting 2 more years for “our lives to begin.” That’s just silly!
On a related note, if you’re always waiting for the next thing to happen in order to “be happy,” you’ll never achieve happiness. We need to remember to place our hope, faith, love, joy and happiness in God.
When we do that, we realize that we’re incredibly blessed to be living abroad in a situation where we don’t currently have to worry about deploying, we have met some people in a great Christian community, and we have our housing and utilities paid for. Those are definitely blessings to celebrate, and it’s important to remember these things when we’re upset by the lack of chicken at the commissary or the loud neighbors downstairs or the long hours John has at work.
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Totally Irrelevant Video time! This one comes from one of the many Christmas celebrations we had. In the video, John is hanging out with one of our nieces. I think they’re discussing the proper way to do a pirouette. 🙂
[wpvideo z82pb51N]
– Sarah
So chicken is short at the commissary too, eh? It seems to run out pretty often at Rewe too! They need to raise more chickens around here! Turkey is no substitute, in my opinion. 🙂
im so ahppy to hear that you guys want to start living and doing something instead of just waiting. i think thats a good philosophy to live by! ive been putting alot of things on hold with my thesis and now waiting to hear back from more schools and it just makes me anxious and antsy (and emotional!) so i think you 2 are doing the right thing!!!!! when i heard you were getting a puppy i thought of the kitten you two adopted for a few days ..maybe a german name?! youll have to keep everyone posted =] looking forward to hearing about yalls adventure with this little addition to your fam!! (and i totally “awwwed” when you referenced his little growing puppy hips..too cute!!!) x0
I named Rookie before I got her! 🙂 Her personality didn’t come out for quite some time. She was nervous and uneasy for a couple weeks. Also, we used to carry Rookie down the stairs to potty. She knew that outside was where she peed. So she OFTEN peed as I was carrying her down the stairs, leaving a line of pee from my apartment door all the way to the grass. I don’t miss that.
Enjoy puppy parenthood. It’s exciting. But keep in mind that doggy parenthood is much more rewarding!!
@CN Heidelberg (I don’t think I know your name, actually!) – Yup…good to know it’s not just the commissary though. I’m still going to blame the company that runs it though!
@Hannah – thanks! I did ask John about a German name, but I think we’ll just wait and see :o)
@Chelsea – I really hope our puppy doesn’t pee all the way down the stairs. It’s all enclosed, so I’d have to clean it up every time. What a chore! And I’m sure we’ll start thinking of names just as soon as we get to see him again. It was just so hard this weekend when he was still so small that he just kept his eyes closed. And thanks for the god wishes about puppy parenthood. Your blogs about Rookie have really helped encourage me that this is the right choice for us.
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That battle of being content–it’s one the Johnson household fights all the time…thanks for blogging about it. Yes, enjoy puppy parenthood!