Summary of the Dolton's September

Settling In
We have made it through our first month of marriage! Whoo hoo! Most of our time has been spent on getting settled in and shopping for our apartment and cooking. Yes that's right, Kacie can cook. : ) Marc is the chef out of the 2 of us so we have enjoyed cooking together and creating our own dishes in between. We have been making use of our new juicer and food processer. We made our own hot salsa and chips: Recipe-cilantro, garlic,jalapenos,tomato sauce and lime. I've enjoyed experimenting with juicing all kinds of vegetables and fruits. I never thought I would ever find myself drinking beet, leek, celery, cucumber or red cabbage juice. It's been interesting studying what each fruit and vegetable does for your body.

This month Marc and I have started visiting new churches and looking for a new church home smaller and closer to home. We are really liking Lake Pointe Church at the Firewheel campus in Garland http://firewheel.lakepointe.org/. Our good friends, Krista and Jason Jetton, invited us to visit as they too are in the process of finding a church that is closer to their home as well. Everyone has been very outgoing and friendly to us, the worship music is great, we like the pastors and their messages and the young married's Bible study. Overall, we feel comfortable and more "at home" here so far.

A couple of weeks ago, we also started looking at dogs to add to our new family. : ) We were debating between a small dog such as a Shih Tzu or a bigger dog that would be more of a protector/jogging partner. We went to look at some Huskies from the Husky adoption agency and also looked at Shih Tzu, Pomeranian puppies. We were looking for a dog that was young but not a puppy. A week later, my mom told us about a Siberian Husky that a principal at a school in her district was giving away. We were reluctant at first because we wanted a female and this was a male. Marc was really excited about it though so we decided to go take a look. This dog had been fenced in a yard the past 2 1/2 years and had never been on a leash, never been inside, never been in a vehicle and had never seen stairs before, which we soon taught him how to climb them. Marc was having to carry him up 3 flights of stairs before Koda discovered that he could walk up stairs as well as down. We got suckered into his beauty and decided to take on the challenge to take this Husky home to our apt. On our way home from picking him up, we took him to PetsMart for a bath and to get him some toys, a kennel, bed, food, treats, leash, harness etc. to get him all fixed up. He immediately hated being put in his kennel but we would eventually have to leave for work. Last Tuesday, our first full day having him, we came home for lunch to check on him and found that he had pushed out the bottom of his kennel and his bed was on top of him. We had no choice but to put him back inside before going back to work. We were so worried about him and rushed home after work again and he had done the same thing, only this time his food and water had spilt everywhere. We took Koda running and then to the dog park at White Rock Lake. He loved that! He was super friendly to all the dogs and people that were there and probably felt right at home, getting to roam around on his own without a leash. Wednesday, Day 2 When we came home for lunch on Wednesday, Koda, is his name by the way, welcomed us at the door! That's right, he found a way to escape from his steel cage and knocked down our palm tree, dvd tower and tried opening the front door and the back door to the balcony. So after him doing all of that, we start doing a lot of research about Siberian Huskies and come to find out, they are naturally destructive dogs who are escape artists. They have a mind of their own, kind of like a cat and are working dogs. They do not do well alone. They are best with a companion and we cannot have 2 dogs in a 1 bedroom apt. So for the rest of this week, we have been leaving him on the balcony while we're gone. He's very smart and tries opening the sliding door with his teeth but at least he can't hurt himself or anything else. If we can't find him a good home soon then we will be taking him to the Husky adoption agency for him to be placed in foster care where he will have someone with him all day. He's gorgeous and loving but lots of work to have a Siberian Husky in Texas. Marc and I have gained a lot of patience while taking care of Koda and learned a lot about huskies this past week. I think we will be taking a break from our dog searching when Koda is gone.