Home, very sweet home...

 So we settled in and did some serious nesting!  We made the place ours, and we love it!  It suits us - just the right size (again, an average of our San Diego house, 30' diameter yurt, and 40' motorhome!), a nice, comfortable, easy-to-use style, with a giant man cave hangar, and in a really pretty park-like setting, with airplanes occasionally coming and going (or even parking! More on this later...) right in front of our home...

 Scratty in her "safe space."  This is one of her go-to places when I vacuum...

 Hayes on the lookout for his friend, Sally...

 Practicing being good dogs...
 

 Zou holds down the bed...

 One of the "treasures" I was happy to be reunited with when unpacking.  This was one thing I was actually looking forward to finding in all those boxes, but it's amazing how many things I unwrapped that I didn't even remember us having!

 Even though our hangar and porch were looking like a surplus store, Bill and I both bought MORE stuff to outfit and complete our home!  One "necessary" item was a new cat tree.  The old one is looking pretty ratty and this way it can stay in the RV (it's fairly heavy to move, so that's a good thing!).  The kitties both enjoy this new piece, it's got great scratching posts (so our furniture gets a little less abuse...), it's actually kind of pretty, and I got it for a great deal (only $40!!!!  So I have to give this website a plug:  chewy.com   I'm now getting the pet food and other supplies from them too.  Great deals to be had!)

 King of his castle (although, Scratty is the feline now most often found in this top bunk!).

 Another thing we bought was a TV stand.  The one we'd had in our house before was one Bill actually built, using a couple of giant Klipsch horn speakers and some other materials.  Unfortunately, in order to move them, the decorative covering Bill made them had to be destroyed.  They probably also would not have fit well in this smaller house...  But we found the perfect piece to replace it - at least the critters all approved, and they definitely gave it the once-over!

 Tractor adds himself to my collection...  He's a teddycat!

 One thing I was quite disheartened by at first was the horrendous traffic in our "big city."  It could take forever to go just a few blocks!!!!  And it didn't help, of course, that I was so unfamiliar and ended up needing to do a U-turn now and then...!!  But I'm very happy to say that the exponentially bad traffic was primarily due to pre-Christmas stuff and is now much, much better!!!

 I have yet to get into just pretty picture-taking, but I had to snap this quick shot on my way home from errands and shopping one evening...  Texas has some gorgeous sunsets.  I hope I will be able to do some of them justice with my more serious camera before too long!  In this photo, you can see I'm about to cross a bridge.  There's more than one bridge to cross with the giant, beautiful lake we live so close to!!!

 As you may have seen in previous blog posts, I did decorate a little bit for Christmas (although I only used a tiny fraction of all the holiday stuff we have - Bill says that half the junk we moved is holiday gear!!!  Oh come one!  It was only a third of the total!!!!  And we didn't put up a tree, both because I didn't have the energy and because cut trees are harder to come by and quite expensive over here!  But I may splurge next year, since I will be able to put it up a month before Christmas Day if I want to, rather than one week!).  You might also notice a couple of "other" decorations atop the kitchen cabinets...  

 I'm not sure if you'd call them Christmas cat or chicken kitty ornaments...

 Time for another outing!

 You can tell that Hayes and Tractor are NOT afraid of the noisy ATV!!!!

 Tractor is not so sure of walking out to the dock, however...

 Hayes is happy to show him - be not afraid!

 Tracky makes it and is even bold enough to jump over a gap in the railings!

 Riding in the back...

 And back to the house...  I have to share with you my favorite room, decoration-wise.  I decided I really wanted to make this house a present-day home - not just stuffed with things from our past.  I wanted it to reflect who we are today.  Of course, that still includes a lot of yesterday's pieces, but there's also a lot of new bits.  One of the first things I bought - even before we arrived at the house! - was this bunny shower curtain.  I wanted something I could love, something with a lot of personality and cuteness (so here, I'm going to give another website a shout!  They have all sorts of artwork, pretty reasonably priced, and you can get it printed in almost any form - on phone covers, comforters, whatever!  Check them out:  Society6 ).  So this bunny was my centerpiece for what became our bunny bathroom!  : )

Some of you might recognize the little guy in the windowsill corner (not talking about the orange guy - all of you probably recognize him!)...  So, it turns out the pantry/laundry room is where the Wild Things Are!! 

 Our bed is REALLY not going to get away now - with TWO dogs holding it down!!

 And back to the lake again.  Poor Zou had to endure the ATV ride over (update:  she's more than OK with it - she's into it - now!), but boy does she love lake play days!!!

 We have been getting some perfect lake days now and then - sunny and in the 70s.  Just right!  Warm enough to get in the water and to dry off on the front porch afterwards!  One of these days it will get much warmer though, and then snakes (cottonmouths - aka, water moccasins - and copperheads) are going to be a big concern - esp. at the lake...

 Uh-oh!  Hayes is getting payback!  He's always jumping on Zou, when she goes out for a stick and is trying to get back onto dry land.  Chicken/Lazy Hayes stays in the shallow water, lying in wait, and then pounces on her - after she's done all the work to get the prize, and when she's tired and waterlogged! - and then tries to steal the stick!  Zou puts up with it gracefully.  But now it's time for Hayes to get serious about HIS swimming skills!!!  No more wimpy wading!!!!!  Dad provides an assist...

 Hayes just needs an introduction to things sometimes...  Same thing with his rock-climbing abilities.  At first, he wouldn't set foot on anything even remotely sloped!  But now, with some prompting, he's good with most reasonable rockpiles.  He (seems to) still retains judgement to know what is a height too high or a slope too steep.  We're not looking for an Atlantic crossing, but a greater comfort level than this little chubby husky currently has...!

Happy Hangar Boy!

Here, he is playing with one of his radio-controlled planes.  Soon, he will be playing with his full-size, real plane!

Someone else playing with theirs!

 The pretty view out our back porch.  There are two empty lots on that side, with tall grass and trees.

 Neat partial cloud cover.

 Just another pretty sunset over our runway...

Say Hi! to Sally!

Meet Sally, a local dog whom we met early on, while she was wandering our streets in search of good times.  A sweet, good-natured but submissive black lab mix, Sally would hang out on the side of the road, waiting for potential future friends to come by.  Apparently, she was basically a stray with a varied, and probably kind of bad (based on her submissive behavior) past.  A well-intentioned young couple had taken her in recently and had been trying to care for her, but they still left her to her own devices in their unfenced yard - while they were at work...

 Sally gallivanting down the dirt airpark perimeter road.  She's got a happy trot going on because she's just met us!  We were riding in our ATV, exploring the airpark with Hayes and the kitties (Zou was excused due to her noisy-ATV fears - for now.  We were hoping that being left out would help her overcome those fears on future rides!), when she spotted us.  And over she ran!  Friends!!!  Fun!!!  YAY!!!

 (this location suits us, partly because it seems like a perfect average of the places we've lived - a midpoint between suburban house and very rural yurt, between manicured and developed and untouched and wild...)

 Our tongue-lolling escort, kicking up her heels!  This is what JOY looks like!!  Muddy and carefree!

 We had planned to take the dogs to the lake before returning home, so we did.  And so did Sally!

 She has found the pals she longs for, and is not about to leave anytime soon...!!  We marvel at her Energizer Bunny-abilities!  She has probably run about two miles at this point and is about to play her legs off with Hayes at the lake,...

 A gaggle of white pelicans!

 Sweet Sally looks up at me (up on the dock walkway).

 Sally made friends quickly with all - including Tracky.

 Fast friends...

Time to go.  We load up our kids.

Oh geez...  So, of course Sally followed us home.  And would not leave...

 Could you tell this sweet girl to buzz off, just scram?! 

 Yeah, well, I guess we couldn't that day.  So she stayed and hung out, and played some more...

 and some more...

 with small breaks now and then. 

But it was dark now, and still Sally sat just outside our door.  I knew the forecast was for temps to literally plummet - from the nice warm day to the 20s or so that evening.  Not a good night for a stray dog to be outdoors...  And we were not prepared to take on a third dog... Thankfully, Sally DID have a dog tag on her bright orange collar.  And it was obvious to me that someone who wished her well had made the tag - it was a cute milkbone tag like our doggies have.  So I called the number on it, and the couple came out to get her.  While we waited for them we brought her in because it was already too cold outside!

We had a repeat performance of sorts a couple days later.  And I had to contact the owners again, who came out to collect their wayward pooch one more time.  I was worried about how many more times they might be wanting to do this, and I also knew we'd be getting tired of this sweet tag-along soon too, as she was forcing us to modify our behaviors - esp. with our dogs - to some degree.  So, when Sally showed up for a third time, Bill and I finally did start yelling at her to go home.  We got serious about it.  I hated it.  I hated betraying her, telling her no you can't play, no we don't love you and you can't stay.  Because that's what she might have been hearing.  But that's NOT what we were saying!  We were saying go home because we don't want you to be hit by a car and die (like a dog friend of hers had done recently...!!), go home because we DO love you and don't want you to wear out your welcome with your new parents and lose your new home!!!!  But to really convince her, we had to spray her with water.  She didn't like this and finally got the idea.  We had one more incident where the hoses had to come out again, but she got the point quickly.  And she hasn't been back since.  We would still see her though - frolicking alongside a young bicyclist, or lying in wait for passersby.  Until a few weeks ago...when we no longer spotted her...anywhere...

I fearfully texted her owners, half-expecting to find out that she'd been run over...  But they told me they'd found her another home!  One with a fence!  So HALLELUJAH!!!!!  We wish her well and hope she finds many friends and has a life full with the pursuit of HAPPYNESS!!!!