2008 year in review

It’s been quite a year for us here in the Carbaugh house. We started out the year with finding out Sunshine was pregnant, only to find out she miscarried in March. It was a little tough to get through, but we survived and continued on with our year.

In June we adopted our second dog Duke, from the Puyallup Animal Rescue. He was a rare find, in that he was 16 months old (still young enough to teach new tricks), he was a Rottweiler mix (which is what we both wanted) and he was a male dog (male dogs are bigger!). Duke took instantly to both Pippin and Josephine, so we decided right there on the spot to take him home with us. Taking in a dog was a huge change for us, especially a young dog who needed exercise and training. We were even a little leery about his behavior, like would he turn on us at any moment that we were not expecting. Lucky for us, that never happened. Duke is a great dog, and is now bigger then Pippin and takes up a space in our house and our hearts.

We also started work on our home improvements with the arrival of Spring. . . . well, we never did get a spring around here, let’s just say, that when it didn’t rain, we did some home improvements. First up, we added raised beds, to the side of the house, for our garden. Next, we moved the fence to the front of the house, instead of the back of the house, giving us more yard space in the back. Our garden did not turn out as nicely as we would have liked this year. We tried to grow many things and failed. We started composting over the summer as well, and added that to the soil for the winter, hoping to give the soil the much needed nutrition for the next growing season.

The summer was filled with Camping and trips to the Ocean. We completed 3 full camping trips of 4 days or longer. We were a little nervous with how Josephine would take to it, but she loved every minute of it, and we will be doing more of it this coming summer. Our big summer vacation trip was postponed many times, and ended up getting canceled due to gas prices. $4.50 a gallon was just too much for us, and we ended up just staying local and camping instead of a road trip to California to see family and friends. Maybe this year, we can make the big trip, if gas prices cooperate.

In August we found out Sunshine was pregnant again, only to find out at 10 weeks that she had miscarried again. We have forgotten who we told, and didn’t tell. So here is the notice, Sunshine is not pregnant at the time of this posting. We went through numerous tests to see if there was a medical explanation for our losses, and the only thing they found was Sunshine was a healthy woman. We are currently trying to get her knocked up again, hoping the odds are in our favor now.

Josephine started getting old enough to enjoy and participate in classes offered through parks and recreation. She started in Toddler Gym, which is more of a play and music type of class. Then Sunshine got her into gymnastics, which she absolutely loves. Starting in 2009 she will be taking 3 classes, Toddler Gym, Gymnastics, and Music and Movement. If Josephine drops her nap then she will be doing Soccer with Doug.

Overall we have had a very full year, full of family and friends. We love all of you, and thank you for all the support you have given us, and we hope to return the favor in the years to come.