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| Paolo turned 50 on May 4th. Maria decorated him. |
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| Updates and photos came daily during our USA trip from all of his caregivers. Thank you, friends! |
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| And all too soon it was time for us to leave the USA (Paolo stayed one more week). |
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| This is how we looked after 18 hours on the plane. |
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| Hardest part of the flight was the LONG wait to deplane once we finally landed (yes we were in the final row...)! |
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| The day after we landed we headed to Guide Dogs to visit with sweet Jagger... |
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| ...and our newest guide dog puppy Oscar moved in. Here he is meeting Pepper. He soon learned not to mess with this cat! |
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| Oscar has not had a home of his own for a while after his original puppy raiser gave him up. Despite his rocky start he is a very sweet, calm, easy pup. We immediately fell in love, especially Bruno! |
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| At age 5 months (birthday Dec 23). |
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| Our vegetable-loving Pepper thanking me for this snack! |
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| Buddies. |
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| Oscar at our first outing together- an office visit with the rest of his litter. He was a star! |
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| Oscar and his brother Oslo. Can you tell them apart? I cannot! Oslo is being raised by another World Bank spouse which is fun since we both really like each other. A family project! |
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| I tried to visit Jagger nearly every day (putting a lot of kms on our old Land Rover!). |
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| Maria is usually sad when Gio is away on a sleepover but she does enjoy that Bruno sleeps with her! |
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| An Oslo-Oscar pile (I have to keep their collars on so I can tell them apart!). |
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| A weekend visit with Jagger means the kids can come along! |
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| Some weekends we have GDA pups stay over while their raisers are traveling. On this weekend we had Nyx. |
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| Something weird at one of our newly renovated malls- Dip parking! I feel a bit weird using the spaces but they are very well positioned, so why not!? |
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| Gio's weekly rugby lesson... |
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| ...with his very own fan club! |
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| Nyx and Oscar in the favorite dog bed (yes, the smallest one!). |
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| I was busy sorting out all of our baby and toddler items to give to a local foster home. Maria had fun trying out her "baby" stroller from our days in Kyiv. |
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| Not really needing the second dog bed. |
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| Jagger at his first hydrotherapy session. |
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| After the laps in the pool Jagger spent some time in an underwater treadmill, where he seemed to try to escape by attempting to drink all of the water! |
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| Back in prison (Jagger on the right). |
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| Oscar has figured out which of our cats is friendly! |
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| Dog park time. |
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| Haircut. |
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| Jagger is now allowed to go on a coffee date with me to a Mugg&Bean near GDA. |
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| A weekend at Sun City. It was quite cold (remember it is late Autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere!) but that did not stop my kids. |
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| An advantage of going to Sun City off season? No one else in the wave pool! |
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| Maria and I were not so keen on going in the water so we mostly played in the sand. |
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| Lazy river. |
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| No, we did NOT go in to this river. At a crocodile sanctuary which gave me nightmares for a week! |
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| Maria and I discovered a new Krispy Kreme right on the route home from school! |
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| Maria is in general a very healthy eater with the big exception of doughnuts- a real passion! |
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| As my friends and I realized that the school year was rapidly ending we tried to squeeze in a few more child-free outings...like a horse-back safari! |
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| A zebra selfie! Yes, there is actually one zebra in the herd that likes to hang out with humans. |
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| Two beautiful giraffes. |
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| More zebra time with my buddies Nicola & Kate. |
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| And so ends May. See you again soon since it is already well past mid-June as I type this!
I hope your summer/winter is beginning well.
Lots of love, Clara
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