Long overdue update!

I know its been forever since I've posted to this blog--lets just say life has a way of keeping me busy. We have had Bianca for over a year now, and she has become a part of our family. It seems like we've always had her now. She responds to Dallon's emotions without commands, and she even responds to Jace now, too. She is a calming influence in our home, keeping me calm most of the time also. She goes every where with me!

We welcomed baby Conner to our home in May. My pregnancy was more difficult this time, but I made it, and Conner was born healthy and beautiful. We moved from Hermiston to the Baker Valley in September, and Dallon is attending a small school in North Powder. It is a perfect fit for him/us. The class sizes are very small, and since they changed from a public school to a charter school they have plenty of resources to service all of Dallon's needs. I was actually offered a one-on-one aid at the beginning of the year, and they hired extra staff to accomodate, too! What a change. Dallon's class has 18 kids in it, and there are always at least 2-3 adults in the room. At this time I am taking Bianca to school on Wednesdays. He is doing really well in school, and the kids think he's cool because his dog comes to visit.

Dallon has grown amazingly in the last year. He is talking so much more, and using pretty good sentence structure. I'm guessing his speech is like that of a typical 3-4 year old. He is doing well academically, although reading is going to be a struggle for a while (phonics are really difficult for him to understand). He speaks spontaneously now, too. It is amazing to hear him spout out something to me without a prompt.

We have not had to use Bianca's tracking skills in a real life situation yet, and I'm hoping we never will. It is very comforting to know what she can do for us if we ever need her though! Her behavior disruption skills have been a great resource, and she is a wonderful friend for my boys to "talk" to. And because she can go anywhere with us, she is a consistent presence that keeps us anchored.

We're home and lovin' the holiday season.

We are finally home and settling in, although it still seems a little unreal to think about all we've done in the last 3 weeks. Since we didn't have a computer with us in Ohio, we were unable to update our blogs. Coming home less than 2 weeks before Christmas made it even more complicated for me to get to the computer and try to tell the LONG story of our adventure. So this is a watered down version starting from the beginning.

Dallon and I flew out of Portland on Friday Nov 28th, the day after Thanksgiving. We arrived late that night (very early on Saturday). After a little rest, and with it being a nice day out, we decided to head to the Columbus Zoo.
The zoo was massive! I heard later that it usually takes more than one day to see it all. We only hit about 1/3 of the exhibits before the crowds started pouring in for their nightly "wildlights". The zoo was covered in Christmas lights and playing Christmas music. Once the crowds came in, it was too much for Dallon, and we were pretty tired from our travels anyway. Above is a picture of Dallon with the world's largest python named Fluffy.

Dallon eating the cookie he got to decorate in a building where they had model trains of all sizes set up in little villages.

He loved the aquariums that we got to see, and this alligator snapping turtle especially caught his eye.

On Monday night Chris and Jace arrived, and early Tuesday we headed to 4 Paws for our first day of training, and to meet Bianca! After what seemed like forever, it was finally our turn to meet our new dog. She came out happy to see anyone with treats. Dallon really enjoyed being the treat giver. She didn't get much time with us before it was lunchtime, but after lunch we did our first obedience work with her. The first day was not what we expected! We didn't realize that we actually needed to build a relationship with our dog before she would willingly listen to us. That's where the treats came in handy.

We did take her back to our room with us that night. And we had a great time playing with and getting to know her.

Each day was a little different. The first couple of days were all about obedience. On the third day we started tracking and going to the mall for our public access work. It was quite a scene to see our group along with all of the kids and 11 dogs in the mall!

Jace being a show-off in the mall play area. He's such a ham!

We also continued our obedience work each day, some in the morning at the training center, and we were required to practice on our own each night. It was amazing to see the change in Bianca once she got to know us. She bonded with Chris really quickly, and soon was picking our Dallon and Jace in a crowd.

Tracking was an experience. It was cold, wet, warm, windy, you name it we did it at least once. One morning while we were waiting it was snowing, and each snow flake was so perfectly formed, we had to take some pictures. It was beautiful, but I don't know about living in that unpredictable Ohio weather all year!

Waiting to go tracking. The boys weren't too sure about having the dog squeezed in with them in the back seat. She would get SOOOO excited about tracking--which is what we want, so we didn't discourage the over-excitement when she would get really anxious waiting for our turn.

Jace and Chris had to head back to Oregon on Dec 10 because Chris had to be at work on the 11th and 12th. So for the last 3 days, I had a couple of volunteers come to training with Dallon and me. It turned out to be a great test of Bianca's tracking skills. Since she didn't know the volunteers, we knew for sure she was tracking Dallon's scent those last couple of days--and she pulled hard and knew what she was looking for!

Graduation finally come on Dec 12th. We did our public access test at the mall and got ourselves ready to go so we could head to Columbus after graduation was over. We did the final paperwork to make Bianca officially Dallon's certified service dog and waited for everyone else to complete their paperwork. It was very hectic, but we survived.

More graduation pictures.

On Saturday morning we got up early and headed to the aiport. Our flights were long, and extra cramped with a dog at our feet. But generally it went very well. We arrived in Portland at about 1pm and after being picked up with Chris' mom and dad, going to his grandparent's house to pick up our car, getting packed up and fed, we were on the road a little after 2:30pm. We made one quick stop, and as we were driving into Hermiston the heavy rain turned to snow, and it hasn't really stopped since!

This is our 3rd winter in Hermiston, and 2 of the 3 have had a significant amount of snow--which is not that typical for the area. Dallon went to one day of school this week, and the rest of the week was cancelled. In total we've gotten over a foot so far, and it is supposed to start again on Sunday and continue until Wednesday.

The boys and dog have been loving the snow, and it really makes it feel like Christmas. We did a little shopping, but not much since we've received so much already this year! We are in the Christmas spirit, and have gotten our tree up and decorated and are happily awaiting a beautiful white Christmas this year!

Happy Holidays, and a huge THANK YOU to everyone we know and love. We are so blessed to have known and been connected to such generous people.

God Bless, and Merry Christmas!

Ready to go!

We've worked out all of our funding issues, and today I am making the last reservation. We are so blessed! A trip that was originally supposed to cost more than $5000 is now costing us just $3000. We have been able to work out every problem. It has been amazing to see so much generosity from everyone around us. We are so lucky to know such amazing people. On Sunday several people at church gave us donations, and we went home with over $700.

One family who has 4 children and have been struggling with a job change gave us an envelope that said, "We wish you the best of luck with your training. May the Lord bless your family. After hearing about your needs, our children rushed to their banks to contribute. Thanks for this wonderful opportunity to share." Inside was $108 and several quarters, nickels, and dimes. That family moved to Boise on Monday. They were in the middle of a lot of their own problems and stress and they took some of what they had and shared it with us.

Dallon and I fly out on Friday afternoon. I am anxious to get going. I'll try to find a computer to post to while we are in Ohio to keep everyone up to date. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has helped us on this journey. We are overwhelmed by how blessed we are to have been able to accomplish the the task of raising over $15,000 in only 8 months. We will never forget this experience and the lessons it has taught us about faith, gratitude, service, love and hope.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Dallon

Each child going to training receives a letter from their dog. We were the only special needs placement, so we were the only ones to know who (and what) our dog was before yesterday. We were the last in our class to receive our letter, which was fine because we already knew who our dog was. This is the letter we received late last night from Bianca.

Dear Dallon,
Finally. I thought it would never be my turn. Well I guess someone had to be last but really those guys sure took their time! I am so excited that finally I will get to meet you. I have been dreaming about you every night. Really it has been cool because while everyone was waiting for their matches I kept humming to myself and thinking there are advantages to being special like knowing who your match is months before the rest! I am so glad you looked at me and decided to accept me as your partner. I am so blessed to have you. I have been working extra hard because every time when I am working I am thinking, I am doing this for Dallon! Now all that hard work is coming to an end and we will be together and all will be perfect. How cool is that! I think you already know I am a Black Lab and my birthday is 4-18-2007 and I am a girl. I don't have to ask if you mind because you picked me just the way I am so I know you do not mind I am a girl. See ya really soon, up close and personal and a kiss in your face! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo Bianca

A Few Changes

So with only 9 days till Dallon and I fly out to Ohio, and with $1500 left to fundraise we began digging deeper for more ways to save money. We ended up being steered toward a low-cost housing option in Xenia. There is a convention/retreat center a couple miles from the training center which has some dormatory style housing available. It is very cheap! For the full 2 weeks of our stay it will only cost $270! This saves us a massive amount of lodging costs. The best part we found was that the room is really a suite. It has two bedrooms (one with a queen bed, one with 3 twin beds) and a private bath for your suite. There are no meals provided, but there is a fridge and a microwave so we can keep breakfast/lunch items there easily. This will increase our food costs, but we figure is saves us about $500 overall.

So we have about $1000 left to raise in 9 days. We still need to rent a car and come up with our "other" expenses like food, gas, training supplies, etc. We are going to contact some church members in Ohio to see if we could possibly "borrow" a vehicle for a much smaller price than renting one. The cheapest rental car that will fit our needs that I've found is $675 (without the extra insurance or taxes). Keep your fingers crossed that we'll be able to find something for much less. If we can decrease that cost, we won't need to raise as much in the end.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us out. We are almost there! Only 12 more days until training begins! All of our arrangements in Ohio have really come together better than I had anticipated, and for much less! At this point (if we still rent a car) the trip is costing just less than $3500. The original estimates we were given was $5000-6000!

In total to date, we have raised about $15000 in just 8 months! Thank you!!!

Time is closing in!

I can't believe how fast the last 90 days have gone by! We leave for Ohio in 16 days. We are still needing donations. Just a few dollars will help, coupons for food or travel, anything you can do will make a difference. Thanks for all of the love and support from eveyone thus far--and we are almost there!

Getting Closer!

Sorry its been so long since I've posted an update. A couple of weeks ago we received a very generous donation from someone at church--$1000! Thank you so much Jeff and Lori! So with the other donations we've recieved, we are up to about $1100 out of the $2800 we still needed to raise. We have just 3 weeks left till we leave for training, but we have almost enough to pay for our hotel stay. We do need additional nights in a hotel in Columbus near the airport for our arrival and departure days. We still need to come up with money for a rental car, and that is our last big expense after hotel.

Thank you all for the support and donations! We're getting there, slow but sure. We're getting very excited about having Bianca finally be home with us.