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The Biggest Debacle Ever {part 3}

Here we go, the grand finale of the biggest debacle ever. Hopefully you've read part 1  and part 2, otherwise you may not understand the full ridiculousness of the situation. 

Friday morning comes and I go to Draper to pick up the puppy. Dylan went to work with Ben, so it was just me picking up the puppy.

Everything went fine with the pickup- the puppy was adorable and sweet, and we headed straight for Ben's work so the boys could meet the puppy. As to be expected, both Ben and Dylan were elated with the puppy and declared it the best present ever. 

Meet Hogan.

A seriously cute ball of fur.

Dylan, Hogan, and I headed home to get Hogan settled in at our house. As to be expected in this pitiful tale, this is what happened five minutes after walking in the door:

That would be the glass top of our coffee table. Dylan was trying to throw a bone to Hogan, but his aim was a little off. 

Our first day with Hogan was great, but exhausting. Taking him outside every 30-45 minutes, keeping an eye on him at all times, etc... it was more stressful than I anticipated. Even so, I wasn't going to gripe- this was Ben's present, and taking care of this puppy was something I just had to do. 

Then came the night. Holy cow, I forgot how awful a howling puppy can sound. Ben and I (and Hogan) barely slept that night. 

The next day was full of taking Hogan outside every 2 seconds, more keeping my eye on him every minute (because the second I'm not looking at him he will pee on my carpet or poo in Dylan's room). It was not a restful time.  And then night came again. More howling, less sleep. 

I could go on and on about this, but the bottom line was this: Ben and I were both super stressed out by this puppy. We knew puppies were a lot of work, but it took getting a puppy to realize that we were not wanting to put the work into a pet.

So 48 hours after getting the puppy we came to a conclusion: Hogan had to go. We were both so stressed out by the puppy that we were miserable. We posted an ad for him on ksl.com. by Sunday night. I know! Worst pet owners ever! We couldn't even handle a week!

A few days later we found a great new home for Hogan and we said goodbye to our little friend. 

Luckily we sold the puppy for what I paid, and we also sold the new owner a bunch of the barely used gear and food. 

We've gone over the situation over and over again- What if we would have given everyone more time to get used to the puppy? What if we waited for Hogan to get used to sleeping in his crate?

Poor Dylan asks about "my Hogan" every single day. We keep telling him that he lives with his mommy and daddy, and we only babysat him for a few days, but he's not forgetting about Hogan. Sad.

That's the long, drawn-out story. The time I spent months planning the perfect surprise for my husband, ended up ruining the surprise the day before it happened, and watched the surprise backfire in our faces. 

Happy birthday Jesus Benjamin, sorry your party present was so lame.
(that's one of my favorite quotes from The Office.)

The Biggest Debacle Ever {part 2}

An alternative title for this post could be "I have the worst luck ever" or "Of all the times and the places." Read on to see why...

Hopefully, you all have read part one of this giant birthday debacle. So you know that I have bitten the bullet and finally decided to get a dog for Ben, despite really not wanting one. The puppy was available for pickup on Friday morning, so on Thursday afternoon I made my way to PetsMart to pick up everything one could possibly need for a puppy. I paid for the whole thing in cash, because I needed to keep things secret- no way was I letting Ben in on his big, secret birthday surprise. 

I left PetsMart $200 poorer, and I was feeling like a pretty good wife. Ben was so excited about his darn surprise and he was going to die of happiness when all was revealed. I even had a grand plan as to how I was going to surprise him. I was going to put the puppy in a large box (ventilated, of course) and bring it to him at work. He would open the box and find an adorable puppy with a ribbon tied around its neck. Ben would then become teary eyed due to the thoughtfulness of this gift and declare me the best wife ever. Sigh.

Somewhere in the midst of my fantasizing I had left the store and began loading all of the stuff into my trunk. Without thinking (seriously- there was no intelligence in this action whatsoever), I ended up loading my purse into my trunk as well. I will call this Mistake #1. I then made an even bigger mistake (called Mistake #2) and shut my trunk. 

Yes, you read correctly, I shut my purse- which contained my keys and phone- in my trunk. I immediately knew the idiocy of my actions, and I may have started yelling, "No, no, no, no" in the parking lot. Maybe. 

A kind young mom saw me a few cars down and asked me if I needed help. I explained what I had done and she offered to let me use her phone. I weighed the options. I could either break into my car myself (which would involve me breaking a window- no joke) or calling Ben. I didn't want to pay for a new window, so I swallowed my pride and called Ben at work. 

This is how the phone call went:

Me: Benjamin, I locked my keys in my car. 

Ben: Ok, where are you? I'll come help you out.

Me: I can't tell you that. Can you just have one of your co-workers come out and help me?

Ben: Why would I do that? Where are you?

Me: I can't tell you. It would ruin the surprise. Can you please send someone out besides you? Pleaaaaaaase?

Ben: No way, woman. 

Me: You're horrible to make me ruin your surprise like this. Horrible. 

Honestly, if I had my phone I would have spent much more time bargaining with him. Since I was borrowing a stranger's phone, I had to give in. It was a soul crushing decision to be honest. 

Me: Fine. I'm in the PetsMart parking lot. Thanks for ruining my life. 

Seriously, of all the times and all the places in the world for me to lock my keys in my car for the first time ever, why did it have to be here? The one time in our marriage when I was being truly sneaky and I didn't want my husband to know my whereabouts?

A few minutes later, Ben pulled up and I immediately burst into tears. So much time and energy had been spent keeping this darn secret and now I had ruined it less than 24 hours before I was to pick up the puppy. Worst. Luck. Ever.

Ben isn't a dummy- he connected the dots in about 2 seconds and wouldn't stop asking about the puppy. In fact, here's a look at some of our texts later that day. Obviously I was still angry:

Really husband? I get you a puppy and the only names you'll consider are stupid golfy names? I think I just threw up. 

So there you have it. The time when I ruined Ben's birthday surprise. If you can possibly imagine, the story just gets more pitiful. Just wait. 

Part 3 is coming up.

Ben Turns 30 + The Biggest Debacle Ever {part 1}.

September was a really big month for our family- Lake Powell, Dylan's birthday, and Ben's birthday. This year was a big one for Ben- he turned 30! Ben and Dylan's birthdays are just one day apart, so you know how exhausted and non-party oriented I was feeling for Dylan's birthday? I was feeling the same for Ben's. That didn't bother Ben much though- he made it clear that he did not want a party. And what my baby wants, my baby gets.... or doesn't get. 

Ben had a great day- special meals all day, some gifts, and this cake sent straight from heaven... or maybe it was from The Chocolate. No one knows for sure. What we do know is that it was amazing, and I was truly bummed when he took the remains to work a few days later to share with his co-workers.

Since Ben was turning 30, I wanted to do something big and fabulous for his birthday. I racked my brain for awhile to figure out a perfect present for such a monumental birthday. I decided that after nearly 8 years of begging and whining, I would get Ben a puppy. He has wanted one for our entire marriage, and I've always said, "Not now." 

Please don't think that I had a change of heart about getting a puppy. Still didn't want one at all. I figured that this was a true gift- a sacrifice even- if I was going to get Ben something that I really, really didn't want. Mind you, I knew that if we got a puppy it would eventually grow on me and I would love it. Just the idea of starting the whole process made me a little miserable. 

I had to be extremely sneaky about the whole operation, as Ben is a notorious snoop. All puppy research had to be done on my work computer. For months he asked about his surprise and I refused to give anything away. 

About a month and a half before his birthday I found a listing for the most adorable puppies- half golden retriever, half border collie. After talking to a million people and doing a lot of research, that mix seemed to be perfect for what we were looking for. I talked to the owner, paid for the puppy, and waited until Ben's birthday. 

The puppy was not ready to leave his mom on Ben's actual birthday, so I hyped Ben up for a surprise a few days after his birthday. Everything was going according to plan until the day before I picked up the puppy. 

That's when disaster struck. 

To Be Continued...

(and yes, you really want to know what happens next.... it's ridiculous)

Dylan is Three!

Oh, blog slackerdom. It's overtaken me and this blog. Many apologies. That being said, let's discuss one of the recent events in the Harris home: Dylan's 3rd birthday . 

As you may remember, I may have gone big for Dylan's first and second birthday parties. This year, I decided to go waaaay low-key, since we returned from Lake Powell just two days before Dylan's birthday, and I knew we'd still be a little exhausted from vacation. I know that it's not necessary for Dylan to have a big party every year (or ever, for that matter), but I still feel bad that I didn't do more. Dylan didn't seem to notice not having a huge party, and he was thrilled with everything we did that day.

The day started with a balloon drop, an idea that came from Pinterest .

As expected, Dylan loved the balloons. When he first opened his door he just said, "Woooooooooow!" We spent the morning playing with the balloons in every capacity- soccer, volleyball, etc. 

Later that day, we headed to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country, since Dylan loves to see all the animals. 

After Dylan's nap we had a few friends over for cake and ice cream. Again, super low-key, but Dylan had a blast.

Happy birthday to my sweet Dylan!

Lake Powell {part 2}

Alright friends, here are some more of my pictures from Lake Powell. It really was such a fun week, and I now understand why people make such a fuss about this place. It's fabulous.

Did I mention that this vacation had a name? Yep, it was Chranksgiving. Thanksgiving+Christmas, of course. Carl knew that the whole family may not get all together for the holidays this year, so we had a week together pre-holiday craziness. Pretty genius if you ask me. 

Here you have the most amazing slip-n-slide fail ever. My father in law Carl brought along a 100 ft. plastic roll and a special hose all for the purpose of the coolest slip-n-slide ever. Unfortunately, things just didn't work out. No one really figured out why, but you could not move on this thing. Even with the slide being soaped down and taking off with a running start, you had to scoot all the way down. Bummer, because it was such a fun idea. 

Here we are! It was a week of no makeup or blowdryers, as you can tell. 

We had a birthday night on Wednesday, since there are seriously 6 family birthdays within 2 weeks of each other. 

Cool picture, right? This was on the way to Rainbow Bridge.

The whole family got mooned by Benjamin about 2 seconds after taking this picture. The husband has no shame. When we said, "Look at that view!" we weren't telling Ben that we wanted to see some skin!

Rainbow Bridge was gorgeous, but stressful- kind of like the Grand Canyon a bit, as there were no railings and about a million ways for kids to fall to their death. 

Aaaaaaand onto the hilariousness...

One night the adults participated in a While Elephant gift exchange. I lucked out with a box of Aveda hair product (SIL Ashley works for the salon- score!), and Ben ended up with Brokeback Mountain. The movie remains in its plastic case.

Senior citizen substance abuse. Not sure if I'll get in trouble for putting this on the blog, but a certain over-70 member of the family smokes a lot of pot. Rumor has it, this has been the case for decades. Nothing was ever smoked in front of anyone, but phew! we sure could smell it a lot. 

The family vacation was, without a doubt, absolutely amazing. We can't wait to get together for Chranksgiving 2013! 

Lake Powell {part 1}

Last week we headed down to Lake Powell for a vacation with Ben's family. I had never been to Lake Powell, so I had no idea what to expect. I had heard enough about the lake over the past 9 years that I knew it would be fabulous. And fabulous it was. 

Ben's dad rented a house boat for all of us- there were between 14 and 17 people there at a time, so it was a full house. Each family was responsible to do the cooking on their assigned day- we had Wednesday, so we made french toast for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunch, and pork burritos for dinner. Honestly, all of the food during the week was divine and I was seriously bummed to leave all the yummy meals. 

We left our house at 4 am on Monday morning, and got to Bullfrog by 9. After a few hours of chaos and unloading the ridiculous amount of stuff that we brought, we were out on the water. Prepare for a photo overload... Mind you, this is just post one of 2 or 3, so brace yourselves. 

My mother in law is amazing and had a daily craft to do with the grandkids. 

Joel brought his dog Atticus, and he was amazingly well behaved. 

There are no words for this one. I hope you all are sensing my eye roll. 

After playing outside all morning, the kids usually came in for a lunchtime/pre-nap movie. Dylan really wanted to watch from the floor, as you can tell.

More pictures coming soon! Also, here are way too many funny things to discuss- Brokeback Mountain, senior citizen drug use, slip and slide fails.... get ready!

A word from The Boss.

Sorry that my mom has been such a junky blogger lately... vacation and back-to-back birthdays have made life pretty busy. She promises to catch up soon!

Hanson + Taylor Swift.

One thing that I absolutely love is a good cover song. When I found one of my oldest favorites, Hanson, covering Taylor Swift it immediately brought a big smile to my face. Whether you are a Hanson or Taylor Swift fan or not, a good cover is always fun.

What do you think of this one? What is your favorite cover?

And the winner is....

Thanks to all of you for entering this fun giveaway! I'm so excited that one of you will be getting one of these fun boxes of Skippyjon Jones goodies from Kohl's. 

Here's the winner:

Hooray, Sarah! I hope you and your kids love these books!

Again, thanks so much to my lovely friend Ale for making this giveaway happen!