While TRF (Texas Ren Fest) was immensely fun, it is so nice to be home after more than two months on the road, and just in time for Christmas, too.
The other day Eddie and I were trying to decide what to get each other for Christmas this year, and I confessed that I have been seriously considering adopting a second dog for a long time now and have been doing a few searches online. Well, it just so happened that last week Eddie ended up near the animal shelter and came home to tell me that there were two malamutes up for adoption. Hmmmm....

We went the next day to visit them, only to find that one had been adopted already, and the other was pending adoption. I didn't want to really pay attention to the dogs - and they were SUPER gorgeous and WELL MANNERED - because I didn't want to get attached to them since they were adopted anyway.

Saturday, the lady at the animal shelter called us up and it turned out that WE could adopt the remaining male. I was out in MD when Ed called, and we decided that he would go pick him up and adopt him!

So, now we have a new dog! And he's a BIIIIG one: a 110 pound malamute mix, and he is a total gentleman. He's very impressive! He and Ceilidh have been going for walks together and doing some occasional rough-housing; they seem to be getting along just fine.

He's already attached himself to our family and claimed us has his new pack, and will whine and wimper if we are not ALL in view. Strangely though, we have had him since Saturday night and he has yet to bark. He is completely silent. Though earlier when I took him for a walk, he heard some dogs barking near by and he threw his head up as if to howl. I can't wait for him to do that, I bet it is gorgeous.

We think we are either going to name him "Koda" (which means 'friend' in I think Chereokee...I could be mistaken, we looked at so many names recently) or "Hacuma" (Ha-KUMA) which is a mixture of Inuit and other languages meaning "Fire Spirit".

He's a jem!!