After a long week or so of dog searching and visiting, my family has gotten a dog. It is a one-year old Aussie (Australian Shephard) mix from a shelter. She is a small/medium size dog which is perfect for us. We are only used to cats. She is a very mild natured dog and good with children and cats (which is good because we have one!). She is housetrained, sleeps in a kennel (indoors) at night, has a low energy level, and does not chew. She is leash trained and does not pull. Aussies are smart dogs, but tireless. Whatever the mix was, she's got a mellow streak. They didn't pay very much and the price included spaying and immunizations! They bring her home today.
We tried having a dog once. It was a puppy which was just way to stressful as our first attempt at a dog and he was gone within a week. This dog will mostly be Tyler (my little brother)'s responsibility to walk her and care for her since Kristin (my little sister) already has a cat, Toby. This will be a good experience, I hope, and we are so excited to see her.
Here's some pictures:
It was a good time and i came home to elk stir fry in teriyaki sauce with white rice. Todd is so sweet. 
Then i took the explorer to get its oil changed while Todd studied and did homework. I came home to a flower made out of nerds and petals with a very sweet card. You can see the front of the card and inside it said, "Love means never having to say 'Oops, sorry--i farted'" and then some other gushy stuff he wrote. :)
Then kinda as my gift to him, we went up to the train tunnel and went hiking with Jared and Michelle and Justin and Cami. I'm glad we didn't have to snow shoe; the snowmobile tracks had packed down the snow enough. 
We walked along Warm River past the train tunnel for about a mile and then set up "camp". 
We built a fire and roasted hot dogs and made hot chocolate and just enjoyed ourselves and time spent together.
