On the first full day that Fred was in town, Fred and I took a walk on the trail behind our house. On our walk, we met Emma, who was being walked by a volunteer from the shelter. We stopped to pet Emma, and the volunteer told me all about how I could become a volunteer too (I thought that would be the perfect way to spend time with dogs without actually taking one home). Emma was super friendly and so excited to have us pet her that Fred and I walked to the shelter and picked up the volunteer paperwork. Over the course of the day, I kept thinking about Emma and then looked her up on the shelter website and found out she was a Cockapoo (a breed that is supposed to shed less and be hypoallergenic). I was sold. I begged Kon to go to the shelter with me that afternoon, but first we all had to go to the hardware store. I typically hate going to the hardware store, but tagged along, in hopes that afterward we could go see Emma! Well, by the time we made it the shelter, I was told that there were already two families who had filled out paperwork to adopt her. We left immediately, and I was crushed and crying.
I spent the next 2 days browsing the internet for dogs to adopt in Minnesota, all the while watching the local shelter webpage to see if Emma was going to move from the "available dogs" column to the "adoption pending" or "recently adopted" column, but she didn't. So I emailed the shelter, and she was still available!!! One woman couldn't take her for a month and the second wanted a running dog and thought that she was too small. So, that Friday afternoon, hours after I received an email that she was still in need of a home, Kon, Fred, Teresa and I went to the shelter, and came home with Emma. She has been fantastic so far. She's only peed in the house once, and that was at my Aunt and Uncle's house (sorry!). She is a snuggler (perfect for me) and a playful, fast runner in the dog park (Kon loves to take her). Anyway, we're excited for everyone to meet her!
This is a picture of our bedroom. If you compare to the earlier bedroom picture you will notice the new lamps and the new rug (thick and cushiony...feels great on bare feet early in the morning). Teresa also helped brain storm a lot of other changes. She will get to help again when they visit around Thanksgiving. 
Emma is just over one year old. She is half poodle and half cocker spaniel
Emma likes to rest with people she loves...here you can see that she and Dad get along quite well together.
This is Emma at one of the dog parks in town. She thinks it great fun to play with the other dogs and to meet many new people also.
Judah Niels Harden was born October 22. Niels (his dad) is one of my emergency medicine co-interns, his wife Karly is a nurse at Mayo, and together they are our best friends in Rochester. We get to see them pretty frequently, but we look forward to spending more time with them in the future. 
This is Karly and Niels when they visited us the other night for dinner. It was the first time Judah had been over to visit. 
