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I am always back tracking so why should today be any different.

Friday and Saturday the girls and I packed like crazy. Well I should say I packed like crazy and had to yell at the girls a lot for sitting down every time I left the room. Sunday James flew into Tucson. His friends in Tucson wanted to have a last cook out so they offered to pick him up at the airport and drive him here after it. That helped me out because that way I could get more packing and cleaning done. I stopped to shower and get ready for him to come but he came too early so I still looked horrible. I had really wanted to look nice since I had not seen him in a month. I was in the bath tub shaving when he text me that he was on his way and they wanted to come in the house to see the puppies. So I had to clean some of the packing mess instead of getting ready so I could look nice.

Monday my parents called and said they were going to come and help finish the packing and take apart furniture. They even went and picked us up some lunch. My dad retired in January so he said he would come today to help pack the truck. That made me very happy. I am not much help with that. I am too weak to carry the huge furniture and then James and I argue when he needs help with things. Between my height or lack there of and my less than long arms I can't be of much help.

So today we pick up the truck, fill it, shower, and start driving. Plus I have to go to the MVD to get a new title for my Jeep while they start loading. If I am not too tired at night and the hotels have internet I might be able to blog. Otherwise who knows when I will get to next. I don't think James has made any calls to get anything hooked up at the house yet. I don't even think he decided what we will get yet. I think we have a satellite dish there unless he ended up giving it to his dad.

Well, I need to get going and get some stuff done. She you when I get to the new house.

Today was the last day of School !!! I am excited but the girls took it very hard. I am liking not having to wake up early and having them home to help me with all of this.

Back to catching up on everything else now that we have the puppies. James finished looking at all the houses and we made a decision. I am not too excited any more but I want the move over with so we can all be together again. We picked the only thing available in the time we need it and the better of the neighborhoods. It is the one that James said he does not think will fit all my furniture. James keeps trying to make me feel better by pointing out that it will only be for a year.

At any rate, we will be in Sturtevant which is a village in Racine County. It is just outside of town and where the rural area begins. We decided to stay outside of Milwaukee.

We have not gotten much more done for the move. We have been busy with the puppies and Noelle and Nicole are both depressed about leaving friends. They usually do the same stages. First we ask them what they think and they say they want to move and they are all excited about it. Then the last week they get depressed. As we are moving they like the adventure of moving. A week after the move they get depressed again and then they meet friends and are happy again.

This time we are moving during the summer so it might be harder to find friends. Plus Noelle has an actual best friend now that she talks to nonstop. We do have friends there from before and a few of them have kids so I hope they will be able to keep busy. Noelle is doing her last sleep over with her best friend tonight. Her friend goes on vacation the next day so this will be the last time she sees her.

Noelle spent all last night searching the house for things she could give her friend as gifts to remember her by. She is taking this very hard now and cried most the night.

Hopefully we can get our butts in gear tomorrow so we can catch up on things. We have set back our moving day so that helps. The house we picked has the earliest move in date, but it is still not early enough. The owner said she does not think she could possibly have it ready before next Saturday or Sunday.

I am assuming that means she has to paint it and does not want to until Saturday. So I am figuring on Sunday to move in. Problem being we made these plans awhile ago. So, James has a flight to Tucson this Sunday morning and he has to be at work in Wisconsin Saturday morning.

Since we can't get into the house right away we are delaying leaving until we have to so this way we will most likely avoid extra day charges for the truck. The truck rental gives us 6 days so if we can't unload it until Sunday we do not want to go over the days allowed. We are already paying $1700 for the darn thing.

So I changed pick up of the truck to Tuesday. That way James comes back Sunday and we will have more time to get things ready and cleaned. We will pick up the truck Tuesday to fill it and rest over night before heading out Wednesday morning. That should get us to Wisconsin some time Friday so James can work the next morning. However that means we won't have a house yet and we will have to stay in a hotel with the dogs and puppies 2 more nights. That would bring us to a total of 4 nights in hotels. I hope they never notice we have the puppies.

The 2 dogs are no problem (other than $20 more a night). I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves Saturday. After sitting in a car for 3 days everyone is going to be stir crazy and not want to just sit in a hotel, but we can not leave the dogs alone.

I wish this was all over with. I need to just worry about one thing at a time. So right now I am going to try to just worry about getting all this packed and cleaned.


Countdown ...
3 Days Until James Is Back
5 Days Until We Have To Pack The Truck
6 Days Until We Start The Drive
8 Days Until We Arrive In Wisconsin
10 Days Until We Move Into The House.

It has been very stressful waiting for the puppies along with everything else, but they have finally been born.

I had to work night shifts on Sunday & Monday so Noelle would call and text me all the time. Every time was for something like... "She is panting", "She looks sad", or "I think she stopped eating". We have been reading many web sites about dog birth lately. All said that the first stage of labor lasts 6-12 hours. Most said they stop eating 24 hours before hand. They also said that they strain and struggle in pain for about 30 minutes before they get to the pushing.

So I kept telling Noelle that even if it was the first stage we would have time for me to finish work and come home. We were very worried that the web sites said that the first time dogs give birth you have to help because they do not always know what to do. Every night I got home hoping and thinking this would be the night.

Well, when I got home Monday night (which was my last night at work) the girls were asleep and I found these poopy slimy globs on the kitchen floor. I figured maybe it would be happening soon. She seemed fine otherwise and ate and went to bed. Tuesday morning she went out to go pee and was jumping at the birds in the tree. She came in and ate a ton so I started to feel like she would never give birth. She had some more of the slimy diarrhea globs so I looked it up online to find nothing.

I started to feel very tired because I didn't get much sleep so I took a nap around 2pm. I started to wake up and saw Jack in Hermione's nest. I told him to get out as I still lay there on the couch groggy.

Again he jumped into her nest, so this got me up to yell at him. I did not want all that time getting Hermione comfortable in her nest to be ruined because he was all of a sudden getting in it. So he got out and went over by Hermione who was sitting in the kitchen.

I heard a dog cry in the nest and after a second it dawned on me that no one was in the nest. I looked and didn't see anything. We had put a blanket in the bottom, then an old comforter, and then sheets to soften it for her. I started to pull everything out and then I saw a little puppy. Hermione had cleaned it all up and chewed off the umbilical cord just like she was supposed to.

I take awhile to fully wake up. James and the girls always laugh at how out of it I am when I wake up. It started to dawn on me that she had her first puppy and I didn't notice. Then I started to freak out because my house was becoming crazy and the girls were still at school. Jack was running around trying to see the puppy, Hermione was leaving a blood spot anywhere she sat but she would not go back in her nest because Jack was running around, and I still had not checked the puppy.

I decided to first put Jack outside. I ran back in to get Hermione in her nest. Then Jack started crying like someone was killing him. So I went back outside to find that he had stuck his head in the gate and popped it. Any time he really wants to come inside he shoves his head in the gate.

He has learned that when he pulls it back out the gate pops open. After running around the neighborhood a few times we got smart and put 2 bungee cords on it too. So I latched the gate again and went back to Hermione to put her in her nest again. Jack again was crying bloody murder and popped the gate so I had to bring him in and put him in the kennel.

He continued to cry and bark but at least I could tend to Hermione and know he was not getting out of the yard. He REALLY wanted to be by the puppy.

Just as I got able to check on the puppy the girls came home. All of this from me waking up until them getting home took 15 minutes. So I figured we had awhile to rest. The web sites all said they rest around an hour to 4 hours between puppies. Hermione kept trying to come out of her nest so Ally sat inside of it with the puppy. Right away she had another puppy.

This one had the sac very tight around it so after she kept licking it and it would not pull away. I tore it a little for her. We got that one all cleaned up and then another one came. We let her clean them as much as she wanted and when she walked away from them we would take them and dry them, tie the cord, and cut them shorter. We ended up rushing as it went on because they just kept coming one after another.

Finally after the 5th one she laid down to rest. We left her alone for awhile to rest and see if she would have more. After about 30 minutes she got up and started looking for her puppies. She really wanted them so we figured she had to be done and so we gave them back to her to start nursing. She nursed for about 15 minutes and out came puppy #6. Finally she was done for real. She did great !!! She made it look so easy. She just turned to lick herself and by the time we got there to check she had a puppy already cleaned off.

She ended up with 2 girls & 4 boys. Of the puppies 4 are black with white spots and 2 are all white.

Well, it is Sunday night and I am at work. Tomorrow is my last night. It feels so unreal that it is coming so fast. That gives me 5 days without work to get things done before James comes back for the move. I have been so busy that I just never had time to blog. Let me see... I have some catching up to do.

I did the normal working thing Friday - Monday. Tuesday I finally had time to go out to some stores. We picked up Noelle's new glasses and got stuff we needed for the up coming puppy delivery. The one girl I work with mentioned that they kept their dog in a baby pool. It helped with clean up from the delivery and allowed the mom to get in and out for feedings,but keep the puppies in.

So we bought a baby pool and it just fits in the front door way. We put in towels from the hotel that got a stain on them so they can't be used. I also got carpet that was removed from a room because it got a stain. I can put that in the back of the Jeep during the move. It should be enough to make a few layers and we can just pull out a layer if it gets dirty along the way.

Next comes us looking for a house to rent in Wisconsin. We have had a hell of a time finding anyone that will allow dogs. Here everyone has dogs and it is no big deal. There are barely any houses for rent there and none allow dogs. James asked if we should get rid of the dogs and I said no way. So we had to start checking into townhouses. There are some townhouses that allow dogs but most are not in areas we wanted to live. I have been busy making phone calls and James has been checking out places. It has been horrible.

We are stuck choosing between a neighborhood we didn't like or a house that is too small. James is waiting to hear from one more person tomorrow and then he said we will have to just decide. He wants a lease signed tomorrow before we run out of time.

I also spent my days off scrubbing my whole house so I did not get any packing done. The land lady called me and said she wanted to come through and do an inspection of the house so she could get an idea of what work might need to be done after we leave. With all the people we are applying for a house with worried about the dogs we wanted a great reference from her so I scrubbed and scrubbed and shampooed carpets for 2 days.

I have had a package of those magic eraser things under my sink for ages and never used them until this week. I LOVE THEM !!! I went through 7 of them. I had to go to the store to buy more and also get oven cleaner and carpet stuff. I scrubbed everything.

When she came she didn't even open the fridge or oven. I was sooo mad that I spent all that time and she didn't even look. She did how ever say that it was very clean and looked like I had a maid clean it all. Little did she know that I cleaned like a crazy woman.

Next comes the dog issue. Hermione still has not had her babies. Average is 62-63 days. Which will be Tuesday or Wednesday. We had just hoped it would be sooner so the puppies would be older during the move. She looks so big and sad. I feel bad for her. Every night I hope she will have them but nothing yet. James keeps telling me to try to get her to deliver them. I don't know what he expects me to do. Squeeze them out of her? I think on Tuesday if they have not come yet I will take her for a little walk. Maybe that will help and I won't have to worry about going in to work.

Lastly, Mother's Day. I didn't feel like trying to make the hour and a half drive to my Mom's house since I worked all weekend and I worry about driving that far when James is no where near here to help if something happens. So I decided to send flowers. I ordered FTD online and spent over $70.

Mother's Day came and went and my Mother received nothing. I let it go thinking maybe they ran late and she will get them Monday. Tuesday I called to complain. I sat on hold for 30 minutes to be told the florist is not answering their phone so we have to wait until they respond to a message. Wednesday late at night I called again to be told they still have not responded.

They would try to call Thursday morning and if the florist does not answer they would call another one. I was promised a larger arrangement with an apology for my Mom and 20% off. Friday came around and I still had not heard anything from my Mom about getting them so I called FTD again at 4:45pm. They said they had to call a different florist because they still could not get a hold of the first one. They also said the place still had until 5pm to deliver them. I pointed out that they were supposed to be called Thursday morning to deliver them and it was Friday.

She said all we could do was wait since it was not 5pm yet. So after work Saturday I was busy calling ads for rentals when my Mom called me around 6pm. She said, "You are never going to guess what your Dad did while I was shopping. The flowers came and he yelled at them and told them he would not sign for anything and they needed to take them back since they were a week late." I wanted to scream at him.

The florist never called me to tell me what happened so I waited to see if FTD would. Nothing, Not one call from anyone. Finally after two weeks my card was credited the full amount that was originally charged. I will never again do business with FTD.