Well, we have had Chenille for over a week and she is doing so well! She’s adorable and we love her! She is still itty-bitty! Her knowledge is extraordinary! We have learned that it is a shih-tzu thing, even though they all have different yet fun personalities.

Katy’s Discovery:
Well, we had had her for a week and Katy, my totally awesome neighbor, had not yet seen her. That’s strange because Katy usually knows everything, but she has been so busy and without time lately. Remember how Jocelyn guessed "dog" before we saw Chenille? Well...
I called Katy to ask her to meet me outside. She always gets outside before I do and she waits at the garage door. I stepped in the garage with Chenille in my arms. I opened the garage door slightly, only about 8 inches off the ground. The light peeked through and Katy’s black crocs stared at me from under the door. “I have a new friend!” I said. “What is it, a dog?” Katy asked, almost sarcastic. I put Chenille under the door and let her walk out. Katy shrieked in fear and then in excitement. I saw Chenille lift off the ground as I heard Katy’s “Awww!”. I opened the door the rest of the way. Katy was hugging her with the widest mouth I’ve ever seen and huge eyes screaming excitement. She thought she was so cute! We played with her for about half an hour just talking and loving the dog. She later told me that at first she thought it was a rat! That’s what I thought too! After about a second she realized it was a black and white shih-tzu that can fit into a size 4 shoe.

The Other Dogs Reactions:
When we first got her, Birkleigh was scared of her, avoiding her as if he were a week squirrel fearing the creatures of it’s habitat hidden in a backyard. As the days went by, he smelled her more and touched noses with her in her time of loneliness. Just like Birkleigh, she could find entertainment anywhere so that her solitary was scarce but occasional. Now, they wrestle and chase like the best of friends.
Ryleigh, since the first day, has taken on a motherly role, highly unusual. Our little fainting goat who cowers at his shadow was the little dog’s shield and guide. Ryleigh, being a standard size rat terrier, is not used to smaller things or female things for that matter. He would not let her wander too far and always inspected her and watched over her.
Toby has talked to her (in the doggy talk way) but mainly ignored her. He protects her but from afar. A big strong man like Toby shouldn’t show his sensitive side, unless being given a belly-rub by Sissy (that’s me!).

What She Knows
She is a brilliant dog! The second day of her being here she already knew where her bed was! If she got tired, she knew exactly where to go! That’s not very common in dogs. Birkleigh was like that too, but we didn’t see his early signs of brilliance because we did not get him until he was 12 weeks old. Chenille knows where her food and water bowl is and she understands the purpose of grass and why certain reasons for it’s existence replace the carpet. She seldom has accidents. We keep her mainly on the tile, of course. She’s getting along well and really loves her home. I’ll keep you updated.

There are some cities with such weird names! Have you ever noticed? Everyone is used to Springfield and Oak Grove and stuff like that. But some are strangely unique!

One is particular is a place called Flippin, Arkansas. I am not joking! If you happen to live there, I hope I am not offending you! I think it would be cool to live there so I could say, “Yeah, I live in Flippin, Arkansas!”
When you think about it, there are some funny things you can say if you live there.
These are some I thought of.

You order an item off a 1-800 number: “Is your address still in Flippin Arkansas?

“I go to the Flippin High School down the road.”

“Everyone loves the Flippin Bank”.

“Did you read the Flippin Newspaper this morning?”

Those are just a few that you can’t help but wonder... Another town with a strange name is Moose Jaw, Canada. That’s just weird.

“Hey, I came here from Moose Jaw, where you from?”

“I was looking for a house in east Moose Jaw!”

I’ve also heard about a Go Home in Ontario, Canada.

You walk in for a job interview. “Well, I was born in Go Home.”

Wow, wouldn’t it be weird being homeschooled in Go Home?

I was telling Mr. Ken about this blog post, and he told me about Buck Snort, Tennessee! Can you believe that?

“And the contest winner is...Jane Doe! From Buck Snort!”

“The weather is bringing us cloudy skies in Buck Snort!”

I wonder if these names have a foreign origin or if they mean something to the person who named them. Everyone knows of the city Quebec, it was in your history book when you were kid! It’s not always specified as a city given a French name that when put into English is “where the river narrows”. It sounds so calming and beautiful when you think of it like that. Is there beauty to Moose Jaw? It must have had some sort of background. Like Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton means baton or stick and rouge means red. When the French came to Louisiana, the Indians offered them a red stick as a sign of peace. Is it the same for Moose Jaw and Buck Snort? And what about Go Home? Is there a logical explanation for that or is it just something off the top of someone’s head? I find this stuff very interesting. With Flippin, well use your own imagination. That’s just too many possibilities. When you really think about it, most of these names were actually thought out due to creativity and logic. And hey, to each his own!

Well, these are my thoughts. I thought it would be cool to do something different like that. Hope you enjoyed it!
Know any strange names of your own?
Comment me and let me know!

We walked outside and Mom sat on the ground, grinning a huge smile you couldn’t help but smile back at. What was that beside her? Eeewww! It was some sort of black and white rat! No, that’s not it. What had Jocelyn said?

We stood in the kitchen. What was the surprise? “Maybe it’s a new dog!” Jocelyn said. As if that would happen.

Amazingly, there stood a 6-week old shih-tzu. She stiffed around happily as we all gaped in amazement. None of us had expected it! Well, Jocelyn had but it was a joke.
Later, Jocelyn, Bailey, the dog, and I sat on the trampoline thinking of a name. Well, Birkleigh is short for Birkenstock, named after a popular shoe being sold and in style for decades. Shoes, handbags, anything designer and fancy was in our mind. Jocelyn wanted to name her Louis Vuitton, I don’t think so! LOL! As we continued thinking, we got really creative. I think it would be really cool if she had been a boy because we could have named it Dooney! Do you get it? Dooney and Burke, or Dooney and Birk? Corny, but cute. Eventually, we thought of a really good name. Prada! Jocelyn and I love the name Prada, and it fits her “all eyes on me” personality that all shih-tzus share. Her silky black fur gave her the Prada attitude. Dad liked the name, but he wanted better. Darn... We played with our little puppy until Jocelyn left.

That night, Mom, Dad, and I sat in the kitchen with her and discussed names. We have different taste in names, I learned. Prada, Jazzy, and B’jorn, (yes, my designer shoe theme), are quite different from Camille, Smidgen, and Java. When naming off pointless words that could be used as pet names, I happened to mention “Chenille”. Mom and Dad liked it! The third time this has happened, too! My sarcasm named a pet. Birkleigh Birkenstock and Spiffy (Hannah’s cat) were named that way. I liked it a bit, it was ok. What about my designer name? But wait... One of my suggestions for a name was Coco Chanel. Chanel, Chenille, Chenel, Chenille. Hmm...

We have 4 dogs. Toblerone (Toby), Shamos O’Ryleigh, Birkleigh Birkenstock, and Coco Chenille. We love them with all our hearts! Thank you for reading about this wonderful experience!

Chenille is so cute! See pictures of her at www.jbirdpics.blogspot.com!

Friday
Jocelyn and I carpool every day of the week because of her Mom’s job. My mom drives us in the morning, and her mom takes us home after school. Jocelyn’s mom picked us up and we drove by Jocelyn’s house to get her stuff. We drove to my house and were greeted by my three dogs. We dumped our stuff upstairs and immediately went to the computer room. Jocelyn and I love the unexplained, so we got all of our mysterious books and started researching the Internet! We were looking at pictures that were believed to be “El Chupacabra”. They were creepy! Jocelyn and I got really freaked out, and on some of them she would dive out of the seat and put her head on the ground. She would scream and cover her eyes, and she made me check some websites before her so that nothing would freak her out. There was this one picture that was a cheesy drawing. We clicked it and it was boring but then it started moving! Needless to say we screamed our heads off. LOL!
We had pizza for dinner .
We watched “Skeleton Key” which is a totally awesome movie I totally recommend! Jocelyn loved it to. We had the lights turned off to make it scarier! Even though it wasn’t that scary. It’s a brilliant mind game of suspense and excitement.
We went to bed around 10:30.
But it was Friday the 13th. Something was still missing. 10:48.
“Jocelyn! We forgot something!”
We went into the bathroom, no light on. Ok, ok, Jocelyn insisted we took a flash light, but it was on it’s head so there was barely any light. We held hands and stared in the mirror. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!”
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Nothing. “Goodnight.”

Saturday
We woke up and had cinnamon rolls for breakfast! YUM! We played air hockey and kind of relaxed. We played on the computer a lot. We went to websites for stores and shops. Jocelyn is the kind of girl who looks at the $148 camis! LOL! I just kind of sat there, she was enjoying herself. I did like some stuff though. We had pizza for lunch and Bailey baked these delicious Reese’s brownies. Ok, well they were stir and microwave but they were good! Jocelyn really liked them. When we were upstairs, Dad called us down. We walked downstairs.
“You guys gotta see this!”

To Be Continued...

Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t updated!
Well, last weekend we went to Branson!
Since I can’t explain every detail, I hit some highlights.

There was no school on Friday due to teacher meetings, so it we were there for some of Thursday and 3 whole days.

The first thing we did was eat at Joe’s Crab Shack. I got a shirt! It was so good! I had shrimp and some of my Mom’s crab which was delicious! Then, we watched a little bit of Branson Landing.

The next day, I was sucked into a maze with no way out! Every where I turned there was a horrible disgusting sign that said “vf”. Yes, I had to shop! This is where the creepy music plays. We covered almost an entire outlet mall. From cooking to underwear I saw it all. Bleechh! Luckily, I threw away my boredom and we drove to Celebration City!

We entered and Bailey was quite nervous. It was her first amusement park since Disney World a couple years ago. But that was too harsh for her. Needless to say, she rode no real rides. Only a couple kiddie rides. Of course, I rode the merry-go-round with her. Even though I’m tough and strong! LOL!
We did water rides and roller coasters. I love Thunderbolt! But Mom didn’t like it because of the jerk at the end. It’s so fast and the corkscrews only make it better! Wildcat is awesome too! The tilt-a-whirl was down and that broke my heart. Sniff...
We were there for a few hours. We would have stayed longer but Dad, Grandma, and Bail were bored. They’re wimps! SsHh! But I have to support Grandma because she is so awesome for doing the Orbiter. That was awesome! Mom and I could have gone on forever!
Dad actually won some monkeys for Bail and I. And you’ll never guess what he won for Mom.
A large glass box stretched down to a wall. Dad moved the handle and the claw went to the back, towards the giant dragon Mom fell in love with. He caught it and started bringing it towards the box. It was going to fall, we knew it. But we were excited. It came closer and closer, but it slipped. Wait! It was hanging on! By his ginormous foot! It fell into the box and Mom got her prize! All thanks to Dad.

The next day was SVC day! We started off eating. I got a huge cinnamon roll. I love Silver Dollar! We took a lot of pictures! Mom and I rode a lot of rides. Thunderation rocks! And I absolutely loved the swings that made you fly, even though it was a really easy ride. Of course, we rode the classic Fire In The Hole. No doubt. And my personal favorite, Thunderation! I’m crazy for wooden roller coasters. They’re so unexpecting and you really feel it in your stomach which is so fun! We rode a ton of rides. And Bailey loved the petting zoo. She was very interested in the bunnies while I was playing with the goats. They’re so cute! But no fainting goats, so sad... LOL! I also thought the old-time school was interesting. While Mom and I were flying in the air, Dad got us more monkeys!

Well, that’s our trip. We went to other restaurants and stores, but those are the highlights.

Will post more soon!