.reasons to smile.: Meet Daisy

Our plan was to pick up our new puppy last Saturday. But, of course, WI weather would make that difficult. There was a ton of snow and wind forecasted for Saturday both in MN (where we were getting our puppy from) and WI. Our breeder was great and super flexible. She let us come on Friday afternoon instead. So, so grateful!! The kids' teachers were also GREAT! I felt bad pulling them from school, but this was a pretty special day for our family. Eli reminded me the priorities... Family, School, Sports. ;) We didn't plan it for a weekday, but we just really didn't want to have to wait another week. Only bummer was Mike had to work.

The scheduled time to pick up Daisy was 3:30pm on Friday. We had some time before we needed to leave town, so we stopped at PetSmart. We got a few things (name tag, which the kids were excited about!) and right when it was time to leave the store... a slush storm happened! We got soaked going back out to the car and I was concerned about the drive. The car was covered in slush and so was the parking lot.

I pulled up the radar and Waze and decided we were still going... and taking the route that went more south to hopefully miss most of the precipitation. I knew Saturday was going to be way worse, so it was Friday or probably a week later, which wasn't ideal either.

So, we were off!! Kids were excited!

[text from Nate the morning we were getting Daisy]

Before I go on I want to document the naming story. We had many name ideas... but, with six people, there wasn't one that everyone loved. Back on April 1st we made a list of all the name ideas we had. Then we did a tally thing to try to understand what name was liked by the most people.

Here is what we did.

1st ~ everyone put a tally by their top four names.

2nd ~ everyone put an "x" by the name they just hated. (Even if the majority liked a name we didn't want to name it something that someone just hated.)

3rd ~ everyone put a heart by the name that was their favorite.

And, here is what the list looked like. Again, on April 1st. This was before we knew which puppy was ours. We were using a picture of a random Berner to look at when trying to decide what name fit best.

When we found out what puppy was ours and were given the next picture everyone looked at it (without referencing our name list from April 1st) and said "Daisy, she totally looks like a Daisy!" It was unanimous that the name should be Daisy. Then I looked back at our name list and realized NOBODY picked Daisy for anything! It's the only name that had no tallies, x's or hearts. It so crazy to me that that's the name that everyone thought of though when seeing a picture of the puppy. Fun story to remember!

[picture of Daisy that the breeder sent before we went to get her... love it!]

[kids on the way to get Daisy]

[the radar when we were leaving FDL... yikes!]

[4 hour drive without stops for a puppy... totally worth it!]

[signs we saw on our way... we did PLAN AHEAD... and were excited to get Daisy a day early!]

We made a couple stops on our way for food and bathroom breaks. But, of course, Eli had to go one last time before we made it there. He is his father's son! ;)

We were so excited to see Daisy when we got there! Because it was me and the four kids it was hard to get pictures of us first seeing her. But, the memory is there. There were two other puppies left in the litter, so it was a little crazy when we were there. A good crazy though... just not one that allowed for pictures. ;)

After about 30 minutes there we were off... with our new baby! ETA without stops (or bad weather) was 8:21pm. I think we ended up getting home about 9:30pm. We did deal with some frozen rain stuff, but nothing that really slowed traffic. The temp held a steady 37 degrees pretty much the entire way... thankfully!

[Rachel and Eli took care of Daisy in the third row and it worked out great! She whined/cried for about 15 minutes (I warned the kids she could be like that entire way), but then she was so good!!!!]

[We stopped at a rest stop after about 2 hours... I finally got to see her and hold her then. I didn't want to leave!!!]

[love her!!!]

[10+ hours in the car meant three of these... ha!]

[here are the kids with Daisy right when we got home!]

Let's just say we learned a lot in the first 15 minutes. For one... she goes #2 immediately after eating!! Ha! ;)

[kids laid with her on the floor until Mike got home... almost 1am. It was fun to introduce him to Daisy when he got home.]

[She is a lot like Maggie... can sleep through anything!]

[The kids with Daisy and too much snow for mid-April!!!!]

[This is my favorite picture so far of Daisy. Rachel took this... love it!!!!! She's been having fun using the good camera and getting lots of pictures of Daisy. Love that she does that!]