I’m back from a glorious week with my family! It was sunshine, dance parties and love.

When I was planning for this vacation I knew we were facing two firsts.  I’d be leaving Jake  (without Melvin here for him) for the first time and we’d have a new dog sitter.  Our previous dog sitter, Vasha (who we love to the moon and back) transitioned to a corporate job so she is not dog sitting much these days.  It almost felt appropriate that her last time watching the boys was when Melvin was here.  She started with Melvin and ended with Melvin.  Some chapters are like that.

This vacation, our dog sitter was Tayler, the daughter of regular midday walker.  She is AMAZING!  I got texts throughout the week, she didn’t judge me when I wanted to FaceTime Jake and she left me a detailed write-up of every single day so that upon my return, I could re-live Jake’s week.  Jake’s week, as per usual, had a lot of meatball making and Little Jake escape-from-the-diaper-events. (This is life with Jake. Luckily, Tayler has a diaper dog at home so she was more than capable of handling Jake, Little Jake and the Meatball Factory).

Despite all the pee and poop, I was still left with this note…

While on vacation my five-year-old-niece asked about Melvin (she was confused when I said the dog watcher was only watching Jake).  I explained to her that Melvin had been called to heaven to be an angel (to which her response was: “so he’s dead?” — I love this part about kids, they cut through the sugar-coating and just state the facts!).  But during my conversations with her, I was touched that she even remembered Melvin and that she could recall stories of him and even share with me what she thought he was doing in Heaven (“stealing food from kid’s hands” — spot on!).

Tune in for the next post when I share a food recall that occurred while I was on vacation and the panic that momma bear went through from afar! It wasn’t pretty.