A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer...

Yesterday, Bryan, Angela and Daniel drove all the way to Yakima, Wash. to pick up our new puppy! Her name is Macie, and she is 11 wks old. She was rescued from a puppy mill in Washington, along with a few of her brothers and sisters. We adopted her from Yakima Valley Pet Rescue. They think she is a labrador retreiver mix. She is mostly black with a slight brownish tint, and has white paws, a white "batman logo" on her chest and a tiny tip of white on her tail. She is basically the cutest puppy ever. She rode the whole way home with them, sleeping in her bed, and right when she got home, she peed in the grass! She is yet to have an accident in the house, and she didn't even whine last night! A bunch of people came out to see her yesterday, and maybe she was just too tired out to whine. She is a really good dog, but a biter! She especially likes to bite my hair. This is Macie and I kissing. How many Koreans does it take to wash a puppy? Four! Angela and Macie. Not sure...

The Bernard family is all about traditions. My family has their own traditions, like all the kids dressing up and doing the nativity play at Grandma Ullman's house on Christmas, millions of family reunions, and the innate ability to procreate. Now that I am married, Bryan and I have to chose which traditions to take part in, and when to create our own. When I was little, every Fourth of July was spent at my Grandma's house in West Salem. The day would kick off around noon, when my brother and uncles would go into town and buy the biggest package of fireworks we could find. We'd then go back to Grandma's, eat some frozen blueberries, jump on the trampoline and pray the sun would sink faster. As soon as we had the go-ahead, we were lighting fireworks. Eventually, the parents and my aunts, uncles and grandparents would come out with their lawn chairs and blankets to ooo and ahh about our fireworks show. For a couple years of high school, my brother became obsessed with Whi...

As I have mentioned before, Bryan and I are a bit unconventional 23-year-olds who enjoy spending every waking moment with high school students. On that note, our "vacation" this summer was spent over the last two weeks on the Navajo Native American reservation in Kaibeto, Arizona on a mission trip with 8 of our high school students and 40 students from Salem Heights. The trip started at 5 a.m. on Thursday when the crew set out from Salem Heights. I did not accompany them on the first leg of the trip, because I had to finish the week of work. So I got up, saw them off, and went back home to sleep for a couple of hours and then went to work at 8:30. After a mad rush to finish my work before my flight left for Phoenix on Saturday morning, I got to be around midnight on Friday night, and then took off for the airport at 3 a.m. (with my parents' taxi service). The flight was no problem, I only had a carry on, so no baggage to check. I sat around and tried not to fall asleep. T...