But there weren't any guests or cake.
Remember how I told you that we were going to be getting a puppy this year? Both of our pups passed away last year. We had to say good-bye to our sweet, sweet old man Bozzy in April. He'd lived with diabetes (two insulin shots a day) for three years. His eye sight was gone. His hearing was almost non-existent. The poor little guy seemed to have lost his sense of smell. His blood sugar really started to get out of control (even though we kept upping his insulin level). None the less, if you'd see him walking around the neighborhood with us you'd have thought he was in his prime. He'd frolic, he'd prance; the chivalrous little man loved life! April was an incredibly hard time for all of us, as I lost a really REALLY good buddy. Abe lost, as he referred to him from the time he started to talk, "his brother Bozz." And my husband lost his first son, a dog he wanted so badly, picked out as a pup, named, adored. Bozzy was an amazing dog!
In November, about three week before Thanksgiving, our Maggie girl suddenly became extra snuggly. Living with a one year old, the little old gal liked to go off to quiet places in the house and snooze. Don't get me wrong she acted like a pup until the very end, but in dog years she was an 85 year old pup. She liked peace and quiet when she could get it and she hadn't been too snuggly for years. But during that whole week at the beginning of November she just wanted to lay by someone (mostly my husband) and cuddle and snuggle (although NOTHING seemed out of the ordinary other than that). In fact her and little Wren just started to interact.
But after one week of cuddly Maggie I asked my kiddo to let our little princess out one morning. In almost all of 2019 Abe was really the one who let the dogs out, ran around outside with them, fed them. He LOVES dogs (that can not be stressed enough). We knew she wouldn't be around for too much longer but we totally didn't see the end being so near either. She was completely fine when we went to bed but that morning she lay in the hallway and couldn't move. Less than ten minutes after we realized she was not okay, she was gone. I think having said good-bye to "brother Bozz" in April made losing Maggie a little easier for Abe but whoa, what a way to end the year.
Fast forward to the surprise Party. My husband had been talking about a party for my birthday this year as it's somewhat of a milestone. He's already thrown me two surprise parties folks so I would NOT put another one past him. I don't want a party. I told him several times to please not throw me a party. Still he kept talking about how I really should reconsider. I made sure to stress to him at least once a day to please NOT plan a party. So he starts to get suspicious and I start to get annoyed and then he and Abe have this secret (you know how seven year olds are with secrets, right?). Until one day the kids and I run to my mom's while hubby is at work only to return to a ten week old puppy hiding in my room with a big red bow on his collar. My husband says, "you really didn't want a surprise party but we had to do something special for your birthday so here is your surprise, his name is Party."
We now have an incredibly smart, really affectionate, obviously playful, somewhat of an old soul 12 week old little boy puppy dog named Party. And it seems that he's mine. The kids adore him and he thinks they are fantastic. And that's the story of my surprise Party.
