Miyuki + Kawana= TLA

We had a dog in our home for a short time while I was growing up. I say "in our home" because it was more of a co-existence rather than a relationship. It didn't work out and my mom had the painful task of taking him to the Humane Society. She didn't know what else to do. She cried all the way home. I must not have been too attached because I don't remember crying at all.  Now I know why my mom cried. She was the one who took care of this little dog and so I can only imagine how attached she got even though he wasn't quite what we had expected. 

Our youngest, Emma, 8, is a complete animal lover. She cried and cried when our little hamster, Henry, died. He "mysteriously" disappeared from his Postmortem Crayola Box Home in the freezer to some undisclosed location in an attempt to give him a proper burial (which translates to: we needed to get him out of the freezer). Emma made him a little headstone and R.I.P. out of mud and put it symbolically in our flower bed. I happened upon it a couple of weeks ago. She was still thinking of him.

A few years ago, out of the blue, I got puppy hungry. I could count on Emma to be on the same page. I investigated different breeds to find the right fit for our family and finally settled on a Shih Tzu. They're small, they don't shed, they don't bark, they're mellow and pretty low maintenance. I found a local breeder who called us when our little dog was old enough to leave home. That was nearly 4 years ago. We named her Annie and she has exceeded our expectations. She loves us and it's humbling to think how little she asks of us and how much she gives  in return. Annie was the beginning of my journey to becoming a dog person. I believe in the power of a pooch. Because of that I was so touched by Miyuki and Kawana.

Miyuki & Kawana

Miyuki is my neighbor and she has been training Kawana, a beautiful Golden Retriever, to be an Assistance Dog through the Power Paws organization. They have been together for 18 months. When I learned a couple of weeks ago that it was time for Kawana to go to his new home and new owner, I could feel how sad Miyuki was to see him go. She had done a good job training him and their bond was strong. Kawana will be placed with a person who's life will be greatly blessed by having him around.He is lovable and smart. He can go to the refrigerator and get a water bottle, he can push the handicap button to open doors among other things. I wanted Miyuki to have more than a snapshot to remember him by, so we did a little photo shoot with the two of them the afternoon of his departure. Here are some of my faves:

I know Miyuki will always remember what it felt like to love Kawana, now she can remember what it looks like.

Happy Anniversary!

Brian and I spent more than half of our courtship writing letters to each other. The mailbox seemed like the perfect photo to celebrate the over 27 years we've known each other. 

It's Friday the 13th and that is a good day at our house. That's the day Brian and I got married 22 years ago right here in Mesa. Here is our story in a nutshell (it's turning out to be a bigger nutshell than I had planned on):

I first saw Brian up at NAU when he walked out on center stage for a dress rehearsal of a play he was in. I was sitting up in a cherry picker adjusting stage lights, so I saw him before he saw me. I thought he was pretty cute. Do you know what I noticed right off the bat? His arm hairs. I thought they were so manly. I was only 18, so it was easy for me to be impressed with such things...not to take away anything from the hair on Brian's arms.

 We dated the rest of the school year and then spent the summer apart, me in Phoenix and him in Mesa.  That summer Brian was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A few months later I joined the church, too.(That is a whole other story) One year later, Brian left on a 2 year mission for the Church to Washington D.C. In the meantime I went to Germany and worked as an Au-Pair for 1 year to have my own adventure.

  This is when our letter writing began. The year I spent in Germany helped solidify the desire that I began to have to serve a mission, so after Brian had been out for about 18 months, I left on a mission as well. I served in Minnesota for 18 months. When you finish your mission, you have a final interview with your Mission President. One thing that stands out from my interview with President Bennett, was a promise he made to me. He told me that I would know within two weeks if Brian was the ONE. That was, after all a long time to be apart. After 37 months of writing regularly we were finally reunited on a warm (wait...I mean blazing hot!) AZ summer day in August of 1986 right outside my house in North Phoenix. That first embrace was magical. My mission president was right...four days later we were engaged. Six months later we were married in the Arizona Temple on March 13, 1987. I should mention that our letter writing didn't stop, but continued after our engagement as Brian left for graduate school in CA and I lived with his parents while working for America West Airlines. We saw each other over Christmas and maybe  twice more during the 6 1/2 months we were engaged. I'm so grateful for all of those years of writing letters...real, actual letters, not emails, not texts, not phone calls,  but a box full of long, anticipated letters. 

Can't wait to go through them someday.