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On www.journeytome.com
Adoption Stories: Journey to Shepherd

We made it, but our trip has been quite the adventure from the very beginning. For starters, we started out more than five hours late. The plan was that we would leave directly after my mom got off from work at 4:30 PM. That didn’t work out as I was still circling the Cape trying to find the dog boarders. I finally got Daisy and my mom’s dog, Bosley, dropped off for boarding around 5 pm. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Regan didn’t understand that we were leaving the dogs and so she became quite upset that we left without the dogs. I ran home and then I still had to finish packing and finish up last minute things.

I ended up packing and repacking as we were trying to keep our weight and suitcases to the minimum. Somehow it still ended up beign way too much luggage. We also had to figure out the car packing as we had to take two cars to my grandmother's house. Between luggage, three car seats, five people, a great dane, springer spaniel and another third dog, we were packed! We finally headed out and I stopped to make final copies of some paperwork I had just received from my HS social worker. As I am going through the paperwork checklist making copies I realized I had forgotten my original birth certificate!!! I almost broke down in tears as we were forty five minutes away from home. Nothing we could do but load up and head home. I got my birth certificate and we headed out on the road again. By this time it is 10 pm and we haven't eaten dinner. We stop and grab some fast food and finally hit interstate at 11 pm. By midnight, we were pulling into my HS adoption agency where they had taped to the door my updated homestudy. She had just finished another update as at the last minute I had to have all background clearances redone. Luckily, my SW is a paperwork rock star and got it done in record time! Things were going as well as expected until my brother decided he was too tired to drive. At this time, we are only in Tampa and have three more hours of travel ahead of us. I could have wrung his neck!! More car reshuffling and my mom who had only had about 3 hours of sleep the night before and myself were driving the cars while my brother slept. My mom had to work overtime until 1:30 in the morning the previous day in order to prepare for being able to take off from work.

At about 2:30, the 16 year old springer spaniel fell off the back seat and couldn't get back up. I had to pull over to the side of the road to boost him up and then he continued to bark for about 45 minutes. Do you now how ear piercing a deaf dogs bark is when you are enclosed in a small, cramped space?!?! At least it kept me awake for the drive! Then my nephew woke up and decided he had to go to the bathroom. Three thirty in the morning and I locate a rest area in the nick of time!! But of course once the car stops, every dog feels the need to use the restroom and so nothing like a little stroll in the middle of the night in a pitch black rest area.
We finally arrive in Interlachen to my grandparent's house at 5:30 am. So much for being well rested for the trip. We woke up at 7:30 am to begin the drive back south to the Tampa airport. We had my grandparents watch the three dogs as my great dane is a big wimp and doesn't handle seperation well, the springer spaniel is old and not the healthiest and the little mutt has seizures. I really hope everything is going well.

We reach Tampa in good time to catch our flights and Regan and Konnor are soooo excited at this point!! We receive our tickets and notice that the five of us are separated with the three adults sitting together and the two kids sitting together all the way in the back of the plane. We got that fixed and headed out to find something for lunch. Regan was so precious being excited with all of the planes and airport activities. She loves her carry on and insists on pulling it herself.