Today is all about family and FOOD!  Aside from my wonderful family (including my 4 crazy sisters) and Chris (my rock) what I am I most thankful for this year…..

Our puppy Oliver (though I can hardly call him a puppy any more, since he’s grown into this tall lankly awkward teenage dog) 🙂

As I read the “Happy Thanksgiving” story from the Asheville Humane Society (where we adopted Oliver as an 8-week puppy) I cried. I wish Chris and I had the means and the land to foster and adopt dogs that need it the most. I look at my sister, Breeann (the head of the foster program at the Asheville Humane Society), with a smile for everything she does and everything she sees at the shelter- I could never be on that end of it.

Yes Oliver eats the cat food, digs in the liter box, has a severe obsession with the tennis ball and Frisbee AND worst of all BARKS BARKS BARKS at everyone and everything. But none of those things make us love him any less or overpower the joy he has brought to Chris and I in the past year. I think back at how easy he was to house train, how he never (and knock on wood) chewed anything in our house (other than one pair of my favorite pair of Vans) and puts up with all the times I cuddle and hug him when I know he just wants to be left alone! Oliver isn’t a good guard dog, he still has the distracted puppy syndrome- 1/2 the time doesn’t notice when someone pulls into our driveway and the other 1/2 of the time barks and growls at things that aren’t there. But that’s how we love him…

This is Oliver’s first of many Thanksgivings with us, though he will be spending it with our rather large family and his doggie cousins.