Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Aunt Maureen's Visit


Matt's sister, Maureen, visited with us for nearly a week. Mostly, we relaxed at home and hung out with the kids. However, on Sunday, we went to Denali National Park. We put the kids in carriers and headed out on a short (one hour) hike.

Later, we went to see the Denali Sled Dogs. The dogs were the highlight of Olivia's trip to Denali. She said, "They're nice, they're friendly! I need to pet them!" Olivia has absolutely NO fear of dogs. We have to be very careful when we're around dogs because Olivia will run up and start playing with them regardless of whether they want to be played with or not. She's very rough with Denali (she takes his leash and puts it through his collar and drags him around the house, pulls on his ears, puts her hand in his food, hits him, screams at him, rides him, etc.) and he takes her abuse with a wagging tail. Therefore, she doesn't understand that not all dogs are like that.

Maureen left early Tuesday morning and we were sad to see her go. Olivia asked for her as soon as she woke up Tuesday morning.

Now, we're full speed ahead with preparing to move to Portugal. We plan on leaving Alaska on August 6 and arriving in Lisbon on August 8th. In the mean time, we have to schedule movers, ship a car, sell a car, book our flights, finish up last minute doctors appointments, get the dog his health certificate and make final arrangements with the housing department at NATO so that our house is ready for us (as ready as it can be - our household goods from Alaska won't arrive for three months) when we arrive.

Gramps
Arsenault and Aunt Andrea will be here on July 23 for 10 days and we're looking forward to that. We're grateful that we've had so many visitors able to come up during our last weeks in Alaska.

We hope that we'll be able to visit with Grandpa and Grandma McQuilton during our long layover in a few weeks. Then, we'll be off to Lisbon and probably won't be back in the States until next August for a wedding.

Our home in Portugal will always be open to visitors! So, start planning your trip!

1 comment:

Amie Davis said...

You better be back in the states next August for a wedding!!! Just over a year until I get to see you all again - Jay and I are looking forward to it!