Tag: adopt don’t shop

travel

Weekend in New Hampshire

On my mission to visit all 50 states, we often use long weekends to visit a new state nearby! This time we rented a cute cabin and headed up to New Hampshire.

This was our first time bringing our doggo on a trip and it went SO well. When we went to Vancouver we had a conversation every day about how fun it would be to bring Kaya along, so we made it happen!

This trip was a little less planned and packed as a result because there’s only so much you can do with a dog in tow.

We stayed at Tarry-Ho campground and our cabin came with only a bed, toilet, and shower. But it was perfect for our easy going weekend! There was also a yummy food truck across the street called 302 Grill and a little deli called Yaya’s – they were our go-to stops for food!

We hiked Franconia Notch National Park. What started as an easy 3 mile hike to see the Basin ended as a very difficult 9 mile uphill hike through empty and full river beds. My boyfriend and I run into trouble every time we hike, we are terrible at mapping out trails. As a person who hates to work out, I was less than thrilled about this long hike. It resulted in a bit of a tiff between us that resolved itself when we got to Lonesome Lake. It was too beautiful to fight or think about how much my knees hurt.

We checked out Sunday morning and stopped in Littleton, New Hampshire to check out a covered bridge. While here, I fell in love with the quirky and upbeat town. I swear I’ll live there one day.

As we got on the road back to New Jersey, we stopped at the Old Man in the Mountain which used to be a profile of an old man in the mountain, but crumbled so they set up a way for you to see what it used to look like.

Then halfway through the trip home we stopped in Hartford, CT for food and a peak at the Capitol building and Mark Twain House. Hartford just wasn’t what I thought it would be so it was an interesting learning experience for me.

I loved the trip and hope to make it back to New Hampshire soon! Have you ever been?

PostGrad

Adopting A Dog – Initial Thoughts

Two months ago I wrote about how we adopted our little monster named Kaya. I introduced her to you and told you the backstory of deciding to get her. So now that we’ve had her for a few months, I wanted to give you all an updated!

I have to admit, the first month with Kaya was so hard. All of our conversations were about her and our relationship definitely went on the back burner. She was chewing things up, being a little too rowdy, and taking up most of our time. As someone who has openly admitted to not wanting kids because I selfishly like my time, this was pretty tough for me.

I don’t want to equate getting a dog to having a child, I KNOW that there is a huge difference. But they are very similar in a lot of ways. Your puppy will wake you up in the middle of the night, you’ll worry about them all day when you’re away from them, they will have accidents and ruin some of your things. They will take up MOST of your time.

I wasn’t loving the experience of having a dog, even though I had wanted one of my own for the past 5 years.

But as we all settled in to our home together, Kaya calmed down a lot. She stopped getting too wild when trying to play and stopped chewing on my stuff. She adapted to waiting for us to wake up in the morning and does so well at the dog park. After the first month of basically disliking this dog, now I love her to death.

And I’m back to equating having a dog to having a child. I now understand how giving up most of your life is worth that love you receive back. Adopting a dog should never be a light decision, it was a huge change for us, but our little family feels so complete now!

The Hookup On...

The Hookup On: Misfit Vapor Smartwatch

Ever since adopting Kaya, I know my activity level has been up. I’ve skipped the gym a lot, but I walk her every single day. It’s funny to think how one little dog can help kick your butt into gear! I really wasn’t sure how much she was getting me up on my feet though until I started using the Misfit Vapor Smartwatch.

I haven’t used any kind of smartwatch or fitness tracking watch before. I sometimes used my phone’s health statistics but they were pretty unreliable.

The Misfit Vapor Smartwatch is very sleek and modern, I have it in all black. It’s a touchscreen smartwatch that puts everything you need to stay active and connected right on your wrist. I synced it to my iPhone, but it can also be used on Android phones!

Some of the features I love are that it can play music, track my heart rate, and it’s swim proof! I especially love that it connects to my phone and can show my all of my notifications and alerts from my phone.

After syncing up my watch, I realized that I walk 4x more now that I have Kaya! And I realized that I can definitely do better than that. Every month I make a goal to get more active, I’ve been wanting to get in better shape for so long now. I think this watch will provide me with the information and motivation I need to do just that! 🙂 Check it out at www.misfit.com/Vapor.

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.

PostGrad

Our Adopt Don’t Shop Story

I was supposed to go to Rhode Island this past weekend for a quick getaway, but plans changed fast.

My boyfriend and I moved in together a couple months ago. But before we even had the conversation about moving in, we were talking about getting a dog. I’m a huge animal lover and have wanted a dog since I graduated college. I had a couple of set backs on my journey to adoption.

One reason being that I didn’t have enough space, money, or time for a while and I knew it was unfair at that point in my life to get a dog. Another setback being, I’ve been bitten in the face twice by two separate dogs on two separate occasions that required a significant amount of stitches – really, that was just bad luck. And lastly, the dog I grew up with passed away not too long ago and it really hit me hard.

But still, we talked about getting a dog for a while and the longer we lived together the more and more we started looking at adoption sites. I had volunteered at a shelter when I first graduated and on Wednesday of last week the most perfect dog became available for adoption. We initially thought we would adopt her and come back to get her after the trip, but that wasn’t really realistic as we would have a hard time leaving her alone after falling in love with her.

I was a little panicky the first couple days, as seems to be the trend with big decisions. We are going to be responsible for this little pup for the rest of her life, I just was nervous we were taking a step a little too early. But we are finally beginning to get settled with her, even though we are facing typical puppy challenges that I will write about later on.

World, meet Kaya. She’s a little over 1 year old, the shelter thinks she is a chow/terrier mix, and she had puppies only a few months ago. She is a great dog and is already pretty well trained! We love her so much already! 🙂 Did you adopt your pet? I’d love to hear about your adoption experience in the comments!