>Kiwi. One Year. And The Research Paper!!

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Our little apartment now has the presence of a furbaby!! My 4 year-old chihuahua, Kiwi, has come to live with us. When we moved, I didnt feel that it was right to take her (or my other chihuahua, Gypsy) because my mom has become extremely attached to them both. They are apart of her daily routine and I felt that she needed them. Over the past year, my mom has overcome Breast Cancer. There were days when the dogs were what got her out of bed and moving on day to day. Thankfully, she is in good health now and doing well. The chi-chis, however are now extremely possessive of her and constantly fighting with each other. Lately, they've been drawing blood and she couldnt bare to see them like that. Since neither of them are aggressive toward people, we opted to take one of them and let the other one stay. We considered every pro and con for who to take and who to leave. The obvious choice was to take Gypsy because shes younger and hyper whereas Kiwi is a little older and set in her ways. She prefers to sleep 18-20 hours a day. ;) But Kiwi is better apartment oriented because shes small and doesnt feel a need to run around outside. At my mom's, Gypsy has a fenced in back yard that she loves. So we decided on Kiwi. Our little baby is now asleep between us in our bed. =)

Today is our One year Anniversary!! We kept our celebrations low-key since bills are right around the corner. Thats fine by me because "night-in" dates our my favorites. We just grilled some chicken and are gonna watch some movies. Yay!!

For my english class, I have to write a research paper about a political issue that is timely and is important to me. I chose Equality for Gay and Lesbian Americans. duh.. =) I want my main points to be marriage, adoption/fostering, and serving in the military. I plan to show the hoops we have to jump through to have children and legally be prepared if we live in a state where gay marriage is banned. I have asked several follow bloggers to share with me their story about the families. Please feel free to share your opinions or ideas. This is a very important issue to me because its something I worry about. Im so afraid that if something ever happens to me, Jessica will have to fight to keep the kids we will have and everything we'll own. Not that I think, either of our families would do anything like that. But I still worry. All my life, I have wanted to adopt and foster children. I know that we will be great mommies and that we will provide a loving and stable home to our children and any children that might live with us. I just dont beleive my love for a woman will effect the way we raise our children. There are so many kids that need a home to feel safe and loved that it shouldnt matter if its a Mom/Dad, 2 Mom, 2 Dad or single parent household. All that should matter is the quality of life that child will have. So much to say and so little time to say it. The paper is due next Aug 4th. Any opinions would be great!!

>Crazy Week

>(Posted By Bake)

So this is my first post on our blog! Its usually my girlfriend who does all the writing on here. But i figured it was time for me to get in on the action too.

I'm the one she refers to mostly as Jess cause that's what she calls me, but i usually go by Bake to everyone else. I play college basketball and am majoring in community health with an education concentration to hopefully one say be a coach and teacher.

So this past week I worked my schools Pee-Wee basketball camp, for kids ages 5-10. I had the 5-8 year olds, and what a week it was. I was responsible for 10 kids from 9 am til 4 pm. And i almost went insane! Now don't get me wrong...I LOVE KIDS. I want to have 3-4 of them myself and foster and adopt too. But having 10 little kids to keep up with that aren't yours and don't listen to you because you aren't their parents is very stressful!

Basically what we do all week is teach them the basics of the game of basketball....i.e. how to shoot, dribble, pass, etc... They love it! Its a whole week for them to run around and eat whatever they want for lunch in the "big college cafeteria"! But the most fun part of the days for us, the college player, was the games. At the end of every day each team would play 1 or 2 real basketball games (well at least real in the sense that we kept score and all). It was the cutest thing watching the little 6 year olds dribble down the court and try to shoot. And when they scored they were so excited!! it was our job as their coaches to make sure that each kid got the chance to score at least once during the week! And i am happy to say that all of mine did! Although our record was only 3-7 :( . I know all this kids had fun!

On the last day of camp we had all the competitions for the kids to try to win awards. But no one on my team won anything....BUT...i made all of my little kids a goodie bag full of candy to take home and eat around their parents!!

And so the week ended and i am free of my 10 little wild things! And i finally got a chance to spend some time with my baby last night! All week we had only been seeing each other for a few hours a day and it was tough. So we have dedicated this weekend as SHELL and BAKE weekend!

>Bittersweet.

>This was the best/worst week ever.

We finally moved into our apartment which we love. We've been unpacking and organizing, in this process we have realized we have way tooooo much stuff. We had our cable and internet connected this morning. Thank God! We were getting bored of Grey's Anatomy (on dvd) everynight. Although, Jess kinda likes it cuz she only seen a few episodes here and there. But its definately better having more than just that.

And the horrible part: We found out our puppies' mother (Coacoa) has Parvo. For those of you who dont know... its a highly contagious disease for dogs. It usually only affects puppies and it was extremely rare that Coacoa got it. Basically, it breaks down their system, depriving them of nutrients and dehydrating them. So even if they are eating and drinking normally their bodies are not absorbing it. After finding this out, we immediately got the babies from Jess' mom's where they had been, in case there was any chance they hadnt already gotten it. However, after one day, it was clear they had Parvo too. We took them to the vet but they said even with treatment, they probably wouldnt make it and that it could always come back. And though it was the hardest decision we've ever made, we decided to have them put to sleep rather than the pain and suffering of attemping to treat them. Friday was the hardest day for us and we just cried all day. We tried to stay busy and just focus on unpacking. We know it was the best thing to do but we hate that they arent here in the new place with us. I thought about taking their pictures off this blog because its hurts to even think about them but I dont wanna erase them. We miss them terribly and hate that this happened. At least for their short little lives they were loved and spoiled right from the start.

RIP Bella and Alice.