Meet Archie!

As if preparing for having an infant in the house sooner rather than later isn't enough, we've gone and added a new puppy into the mix too!

We went to dinner at some friends' house a few weeks ago.  These friends have been talking about getting a puppy for many months now and they showed me a picture of one that they'd found on Ebay in the Nashville area.  He was a miniture schnauzer and so precious!  I told her how sweet he was but that I agreed that the timing probably wasn't right in case they needed to buy plane tickets to fly home at a moment's notice due to his aunt's failing battle with cancer, and that waiting until after we got our bonuses in March was really smart and not too far away.

Well, one beer and two glasses of wine later, Elvis looks at the picture and goes into hyper-drive by calling the breeder, asking if she still had the puppies, asking if it was too late to come over that night to look at them, and asking for her address so we could plug it into the GPS.  He instantly fell for this little fur ball to the point that he said that if our friends weren't going to get him, that we would!  (that comment more than pissed me off a little bit because that was their puppy that they wanted)  Now, all of a sudden, our friends were put on the spot to make a snap decision on whether or not they wanted a puppy that night.  Thanks, Spann.

We decided to just go look at the puppies and that if they fell in love with one, that they could put a deposit down on him and wait to pick him up until we got our bonuses.  We had barely stepped foot into the house and both men had latched on to their favorite little buddies, and before we knew it we both were unexpectedly taking home miniature schnauzer puppies!  Our friends already had a name picked out for theirs after a favored Italian motorcycle rider who had recently died in a freak racing accident: Marco Simoncelli.  Since we had not been planning on even getting a puppy in the near future, we had no names in mind for our snuffling little buddy, but on the way home we discussed possibilities.  Since the trademark features of schnauzers is their bushy eyebrows, mustache, and beard, we decided we wanted an old man sounding name.  After running through several other names, Elvis comes up with Archibald, and I agree and say we can call him Archie.  As if Archibald wasn't a big enough name for this little guy, I take it several steps beyond that and bestow his full name upon him: Sir Archibald Oliver Spann.  Yes...Sir. 

And without regaling every sweet thing he does (snuggles, puppy breath, sweet tiny kisses), and every little thing that makes us second guess our decision (accidents in the floor, potty training, sleep deprivation), I'll just say that we are ultimately very happy with that serendipidous moment when he came into our lives unexpectedly and that he has meshed with the family very well.  Maggie is even growing to like him and isn't nearly as jealous as I expected her to be.