Friday afternoon, August 6, when James got off of work; he, Mal, and I got into the car and drove toward Houston. We stopped at the Bus-ees (a Texas road trip must!) in Giddings, then at the Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham (their operations close for the day at 2, so we didn't get to see that, but their $1 scoop shop is hard to beat), and finally at a pizza pub with an outdoor playground in Spring before checking in to our motel in Kingwood.
This place was $55 a night, probably the first straight-up motel Mal's ever stayed in, and was super clean and quiet. If you're ever in the area, America's Best Value Inns IAH/Kingwood is a comfy place to spend a cheap night, especially if you're heading to the airport in the morning.
I got up and walked Saturday morning, and found a taco truck for James's breakfast, and a home-cooking place for our dinner.
We had a laid-back day, visiting a local park/nature preserve for Mal first thing, then driving into Houston proper to see the Beer Can House. I thought it would be open, but apparently hours "vary." We were the only ones there and got to looky-loo for quite a while. It's amazing; when I visited with D 15 years ago, the house was in a neighborhood with pretty similar small, Craftsman-looking houses. Now, it's like the movie Up where it's surrounded by apartments, condos, and remodeled/rebuilt homes.
After that, we stopped at a bakery we'd passed on the way down. We left with tons of good stuff, including way too much pan dulce, some tortillas, and a half-dozen tamales.
We chilled at the hotel until dinner, when we drove the short distance to Bill's Cafe. It had a nice outdoor space where Mal played Codespark Hero Foos while we ate. Oh, and as we were getting out of the car, I'd put my purse down to help Mal with his mask and the door shut, locking my keys inside. So we also got to visit with a nice locksmith. Thank you, roadside assistance.
Originally, we were supposed to pick the puppy up at noon, but one of the breeders had to go into work, so we did it at 8 AM. That worked out so well. All of the paperwork was online, so all we had to do was get Luke and take off. Bwhippd is a great outfit and I cannot recommend them highly enough. When we got Luke, we'd taken a toy for his crate, and they not only got it scented with his mom's scent, they let us meet her! We didn't take a picture, but her name is Zara and you can see her here.
We'd found a park 3 minutes from their house, so we went there first to let Mal and Luke burn off some steam before driving back to Austin.
The ride home was a dream, honestly. Luke settled in so well. We stopped after about an hour to let everyone go to the restroom, when managed to make it the rest of the way home in a straight shot!
Mal said that having a dog in the back seat made the drive much less boring. It took about two hours, but he did pet Luke (he's been frightened of dogs, from having encounters with much too aggressively friendly ones).
Since Sunday afternoon, we've been in full puppy mode, and I feel like the way the breeders managed the litter has made the transition so easy for us. He has a lot of energy, and he's age-appropriately bite-y; but he also was basically potty-trained from having access to a dog door and "crate time" the last week before he came home. He is great at night in the crate. He typically wakes up every 3-4 hours, which is tiring but, again, age-appropriate. It will extend over time.
The cats let their guard down a bit Monday morning, and Rudy let Luke sniff him. Luke was so excited that he bounded over to Carol, and she let him know in no uncertain terms that his enthusiasm was NOT returned. He screamed so loud, everyone did a reset and they're getting to know each other from a much more respectful distance now.
So for the next few weeks, it's lots of go outside, come in and play, do some light training, eat some food, play some more, sleep a while. It's like having a baby in that when he's sleeping, I'm trying like crazy to get everything done around the house and with meals that I can manage. Also, I find I'm spending more time with Mal than usual because I want to make sure he doesn't feel short-changed on that because of the dog.
I've basically eschewed any commitments for a while, and the change of pace is nice. Now I will leave you with a few pictures, as this past half hour sitting with a pup's head on my lap, typing away on the computer, has felt extremely luxurious, but I have stuff to do.
