Working on the House and Getting Jackson!

Sorry for the delay everyone, things have been pretty busy both at home and at work, so the blog has been put a little bit on the back burner.

So just a few updates of the past few weeks leading up to now...

After Christmas and New Years, we came back to Redland Bay and I returned to work.

Judy, Shane, Dave, and Lisa came down that following weekend to check out where we're living and to help us continue to get organized.

We got a lot done while they were here and are slowly making progress to getting more settled. (I promise I'll post photos of the house soon, we just need a few more items to make it look a little more complete... we still have a long way to go in the decor department, but we'll get there)

While Judy and Shane were here I got my Christmas gift from my Secret Santa back home, who happened to be Taylor. She got me these magnetic birds that you hang on your wall and they hold letters in their beaks and your keys below their mouth. She had gotten them before Thanksgiving and I'm not sure if she knew I really liked them, but I really liked them and was SO excited to get them for our house. They were the first thing to be hung up!

(in case you're wondering what the other things are below it- one is the light switch and one is a fan remote that Dan hung with velcro)

Also while they were here, Dan did some gardening and we also got a new BBQ that Dan and Shane put together and we had a very nice steak dinner on our new BBQ!

So overall it was a very successful weekend and we made some massive progress in getting things we needed and hanging things up around the house.

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The following week Dan went down to Sydney for the week to visit Jackson and then I flew in Friday after work to get Jackson on Saturday.

I was able to hang out with Gina on Friday night which was awesome, and then Dan and I met up on Saturday to go free Jackson from jail!

It was so exciting to get Jackson. We got to quarantine and checked in and got Jackson's final release paperwork. Dan had already gotten his crate back during the week, then we waited in line with everyone else to get our dog! There were these guys in line behind us from South Africa and they asked us how long we had been away from our dog. We sighed and said... 30 days. Then we asked them the same question and they said, 6 months! Their dog had to do 5 months quarantine in South Africa and then one month in Australia. Not to mention that they moved to Australia pretty much immediately after their dogs went into quarantine, so they really hadn't seen them in about 6 months, and they had 2 dogs and 1 cat all in quarantine.. that'd be expensive! So we were lucky in comparison.

As we waited in line, we saw the area where the dogs were in crates waiting for pick up. We quickly realized that it might be a little chaotic (knowing Jackson) for us both to be there to get him, so I ended up going into the parking lot to wait, and Dan got Jackson.

I saw Dan and Jackson walk out and then Jackson was on a trail to go after and play with this one dog, when he thought he saw me and started heading my way. Needless to say, he was VERY excited... Dan captured this video...

So as you can see, we were all very excited to get Jackson back.

Immediately after getting Jackson we went across the street to a grassy field where Gina and her little sister Steph were waiting to say hi, then Dan and I headed to a dog park with Jackson.

later that day we had Kennett and Rose's engagement party and Jackson was going to be staying at Kennett's mom's house while the party was going on, so we wanted to make sure we spent some time with him and got some of his energy out so we could have fun at the party.

Jackson was excited to be out of jail and able to smell all the new smells.

We were a little excited too :)

 We did our job and the little boy was very tired.

After the park, it was off to Kennett's and time for the party!

Kennett and Rose put together a great party with their family and friends at their house. It was a hot day but they set up a nice tent in the backyard and everyone had a ton of fun!

The next day we left around 5am to hit the road for our 10 hour drive back to Redland Bay.

We had a great time in Sydney and we were very happy to have Jackson back.

Jackson did well in quarantine and other than long nails, dirty teeth, dry elbows, and dry skin- he was close to perfect.

He seems to really love his new house here, but I know he misses his friends in Carlsbad too.

Oh I almost forgot! We took Jackson to the dog beach on the Gold Coast the first week we had him and it was AMAZING!

There's this place called The Strand on the North end of the Gold Coast. Dan and I actually went there during my first visit to Australia and saw a little puppy on the beach and ever since we've had Jackson we've talked about taking him there.

So one night after work we drove down and Jackson had so much fun. There were a ton of dogs and so much space to run around. The water is also a lot warmer here, so he had no problem going in and running around. It was so great to see Jackson back at a beach just running and being himself again :)

There were quite a few jelly fish on the beach that had washed up. Luckily Jackson didn't want to play with them, but we were worried about him running into one.

 There are also these things called Blue Bottles (this one is a really big one) that are generally pretty small and they're like little jelly fish that you don't see and step on and they pop which is fun but the tentacles can sting you so you want to be careful of that.

So there you have it. The full Jackson update. We are very happy to be back together, and we were looking forward to heading up to Bundaberg with Jackson for Australia day (26th of Jan) for Jackson to see Dan's home town and meet Harry (Judy and Shane's dog)... that weekend didn't quite go as planned, more on that in the next post... (ooohhh cliff hanger...)