A Good Week...Sans Sunshine!

Lots of great things have been happening over the past week or so.  Amy came to visit over the weekend. Whitley went on her first official walk.  And... it's the final countdown to the end of the interview trail!!  Brian is in the middle of his last stretch of call days, post-call days, and interviews.  After this week he will only have one interview left. And that is a blessing.  We're having lots of ugly, rainy weather in east Tennessee but it isn't slowing us down.

Amy came to visit over the weekend!  It was so great to see her.  It is so hard to coordinate schedules between work, weddings, interviews, and everything else that is going on in life but when we do we certainly try to make the most out of it.  She drove four and a half long hours to visit... which I accidentally estimated to be three hours!  I'm really terrible with navigating places...

She brought me an amazing gift.  A special holder to keep corks from wine bottles with a bottle of wine from a local vineyard in Raleigh.  I like to write the date and event on wine corks.  It is so fun to look through your corks and remember who you were with, where you were at, and what you were going... great memories!

Her first night here we made the drive to Knoxville to go to Cirque du Soleil's Alegria.  I have heard such amazing things about their shows and have yet to go... until this weekend.  The good parts of the show were great!  Then there were the clowns.  For those of you who don't know I'm not a fan of clowns...AT ALL!  And these were the clowns in the solid grey suits with the solid yellow ties that stretch all the way to their knees.  Red mohawks. With giant red noses.  It confirmed all of the previous emotions that I have felt towards clowns.  We ended up leaving the show a bit early and went out for some appetizers!  The best times are the ones you spend actually getting to catch up... Despite the show not being all that we hoped, the company was great!

The next day we headed to Asheville for some retail therapy and a great dinner.

Then home for playtime with Whit, popcorn, and a chick flick.

Let's just say the weekend added one great cork to the new holder!

Speaking of Miss Whit... She is HUGE!  I feel like she grows every single day.  She is constantly doing new things.  Her trick of the week is to hide her new "cheese bone" in mysterious places.  It is crazy that at eleven weeks she knows to hide her bone, burry it with her nose, and then remembers where she put it the next day.  I can't even remember where I put my shoes when I take them off...

And now for a few obligatory highlights of Whitley's week.

I guess similar to a baby you buy toy after toy... after toy.  Then they decide that their favorite toy is...

Your sock.

Or the leaves off of the plant in the living room. Or perhaps your slipper.

She started to get hypoxic from her harness because she is growing so much... so we shed the harness and moved into a big girl collar.  Then we ate the harness... obviously!

She has had some bonding time with Brian.  She just loves him to pieces.  The only time she has an accident in the house is when he comes home and she gets so worked up that she just cant stand it. 

We went on our first walk to the park this week.  This was an adventure to say the least.  There was a lot of leash pulling, leash biting, and sitting down in the middle of a random yard refusing to move.  However, we were able to take a little bit of time to enjoy the beauty of east Tennessee.  

Meet our neighbors.

East Tennessee is such a beautiful part of the country.  We always find ourselves leaving for weekends to visit family and friends or running off for vacation.  After all of the interviews, call days, and post call days it is finally time for vacation.  The countdown is T-minus 9 days... not that I'm counting.  We decided this time we would do a "staycation".  We rented a house on Douglas Lake and plan on spending the week without a schedule.  Fishing, grilling out, exploring the lake, hiking, Dollywood, a few dinners out, and quality time with our buddy.  We could not be more excited to stay in the area and enjoy it by doing a whole lot of nothing... together!

Well, this week we sure did enjoy all of the signs of spring.  April showers came early.  It is such a good feeling to see green grass and flowers. Spring certainly has a specific "scent" which Whitley experienced for the first time!

Whit is definitely growing fast...she's turning into quite the big girl!  Don't be fooled though. She's all puppy!

And now for Whitley's thought of the day... after a good T-bone always remember to lick your chops!