I really do not have that much content lately. My life is the same ‘ole thing every day. Wake-up, get ready for work, work all day (occasionally meet various friends for lunch or coffee in there), come home and walk Chloe or take her to the park to play fetch, make dinner, go to running or yoga, come home and eat dinner, watch TV or read, bed.

Sleep, rinse, repeat.

I have a few posts rolling around in my head about running and training. but I need to spend some dedicated time on my computer to write them. Hopefully this Saturday morning this will get done!

In the meantime, I’m still regularly taking many, many pictures on my iPhone using instagram so I thought I’d share a few more that I’ve collected over the last couple weeks! Photos are always fun to look at and a photo is worth 1,000 words, right? Right?

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Webster has just recently started really camping out in this little house he’s had for over a year. I find it painfully cute and also hilarious when he reaches a little paw out to whack Chloe as she walks by!

I’m in love with my new, super colourful, scarf that I bought off etsy a couple weeks ago! It really brightens up some of my more “boring” outfits!

My new favourite picture of Eric and I. Taken while snowboarding this past weekend!

Here’s Chloe trying to intrude on my bath the other night. She kept sticking her head in the door and then whining when I told her to get out! Lol

I try to make coffee at home as much as possible but I do end up going to Tim Hortons about once a week. Mostly because it’s cheaper and on my way to work. I always get an XL coffee with two cream. Well I went the other day and apparently there XL coffees have practically doubled in size! I took a picture of it next to my 1L water bottle so you could get an idea of how huge this coffee is. Wish they’d told me  before I ordered so I could have got a L! I was definitely a little jittery from the extra caffeine that day.

A fun package the BMO Vancouver Marathon sent me for being a Run Van Blogger. A new running hat, gloves, t-shirt and keychain! Plus some rack cards that I dropped off at the yoga studio. If you’re interested in running the BMO Vancouver Marathon sign up quick, I saw on Twitter they only have about 100 spots left!

And last but not least, the gorgeous flowers Eric sent me at work yesterday for Valentines Day. They also had a really sweet card that made me tear up a little. What a great hubby-to-be

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Do you use your phone to take lots of photos? If so, what kinds of pictures do you have on your phone as of late?

It’s been nearly two weeks (on Thursday) since we brought little Chloe into our lives so I thought I’d give you a brief update on how we came to get a puppy (I know it seemed sudden to some), how life with a puppy is treating us and how our lives have changed and not changed!

Big Decision

If you haven’t been reading my blog for very long you might not know that Eric and I have wanted a puppy – specifically a boxer puppy – for a long time. Check out this comment I left on A Foodie Stays Fit blog in March 2010!

We wanted a boxer because we knew they were a fun-loving, playful, energized, friendly breed! And it doesn’t hurt that they’re pretty cute We did our research and had been watching local shelters, local breeders and kijiji for a boxer for about the last six months. It was not a sudden decision and we did not go into it lighthearted with the “OMG A CUTE PUPPY SO FUN” attitude. We knew how much work it was going to be but we are both dog lovers and we were ready for it!

Adoption vs. Breeder

We wanted to adopt if possible but we were also open to the idea of getting our puppy from a breeder. I’ve been keeping an eye on local shelters for the past six months or so and there have been very few boxers or boxer-crosses come through and the few that did had behavioral problems and weren’t recommended to be placed somewhere they’d be around children or cats. I think adopting animals is absolutely wonderful and I plan to adopt our next dog (hopefully a senior dog!) but I think getting a puppy from a respectable breeder can be the right decision for some people. Especially if your heart is set on a certain breed like ours was.

If you choose to get a dog from a breeder it’s very important to make an informed decision and make sure you are not supporting a puppy mill. We did two site visits to the farm Chloe came from before buying her and made sure the conditions she – and her parents – lived in were clean, healthy and happy. I also asked lots of questions about how many litters the mother has had and got all her paperwork with her origins on it. Here are some good articles about finding a good breeder and avoiding puppy mills!

Crate Training

Because I work full-time and Eric works full-time in the summer/goes to school full-time in the winter, we’ve decided to crate train Chloe. She absolutely loves her crate and will often choose to sleep in it with the door open even when we are home. Crate training is working out really well for us. She is only locked in it if we are gone or if we are home but distracted (i.e. showering or working out in our home gym downstairs). Eventually, when she’s fully trained, we plan on letting her roam the house during the days and sleep on a dog bed in our room at night, but that won’t be for at least 1-2 years.

How Our Lives have Changed

To be honest, not a whole lot has changed. At least not drastically.

I go home at lunch now, which I didn’t used to do, to let Chloe out, feed her and play with her. Once Eric starts school in September I will only need to go home at lunch 1-2 times per week instead of five times.

We’ve had less sleep. Chloe usually gets up once or twice a night and needs to be taken out so I’ve been pretty sleep-deprived. The two nights before my triathlon Eric slept downstairs with her so I could get a solid night of sleep and it was blissful!

Now we spend our evenings outside at the park playing with Chloe or walking her. It’s really nice and certainly a lot better than spending them in front of the TV or computer like we did before.

We can’t just pick up and go somewhere but we couldn’t exactly do that before with Webster either. The longest I would leave Webster alone at the house was two nights anyways and we aren’t really ‘pick up and leave’ people so that hasn’t been a big deal for us.

Of course there have been some peeing and pooping incidents on the floor. They usually make me want to pull my hair out at the time but luckily almost our entire house is laminate and where there is rug (staircases) it is pretty gross rug that we plan on replacing within the next 2 years anyways. Other than one minor chewing incident of the staircase step we haven’t had any chewing problems…yet!

We really love her already and all the extra work/money/planning is 100% worth it. When we were first getting her I had this irrational fear that I wasn’t going to love her as much as I love Webster (I really love Webster) Webster will always hold a special place in my heart as my first pet but my love has just grown with the addition of Chloe, not split in half

I really love being a fur-parent. I have absolutely ZERO desire to be a real parent right now but being a fur-parent is fun and rewarding even if it is a lot of work. The animals never cease to make me laugh multiple times a day!

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Question of the day: Are you a fur-parent? What kinds of pets do you have? If you don’t have any pets, do you want one?

Remember how I’ve was having puppy fever? Well that “waiting” until after we’re married to get our boxer puppy didn’t work out too well… Meet Chloe! Our new, 9-week old, boxer puppy. We just picked her up last night!

I would say this was kind of spur of the moment, but it’s not really, since we’ve been talking about getting a boxer puppy – and saving money for one – for almost two years now. When I found this pup on Kijiji the other day we couldn’t pass up going to see her. She came from a nice family farm outside of the city. Her litter was only the third litter the mom had had in over five years.

We just went to “look” the other night but of course we fell in love. Eric is especially smitten with her!

Her cat brother is… well, he’s getting used to her He’s been following her around and sniffing her every chance he gets! Towards the end of the night Webster was getting more outgoing and tried to whack Chloe a few times. I think he just wanted to play, though!

Last night we took her to the park behind her house and played with her for a bit. She is so, so fun and is already learning to come to her name!

We love her so much already

More details next week on the first weekend with a newborn pup