Truman Bailey Weaver

I'm interrupting our Navy life story for a very important introduction..........

I realized during my last post, when I wrote about taking Truman to the beach, that I had not introduced him! So,----here's.........Truman!! When Rodney was in the process of joining the Navy, he decided I would need someone to keep me company when he was away, so he started looking for a dog for me! The main qualifications were---no yappy dogs! and preferably not a big shedder. In his research he discovered that Shih Tzus fit that criteria. He found a local breeder and we went for a play date!

That is when we met Truman! He was the cutest little fur-ball! At the time, he was 2 months and weighed about 2 pounds. He was the runt of the litter, but seemed to be the smartest! Well, needless to say, we he stole our hearts. She wanted to keep him until he was 3 months old, just to be sure that as the runt, no issues developed. That actually worked out perfectly for us....I was able to finish the school year and be home for the summer to start all the puppy training stuff. Although, that turned out to be not near as bad as I had imagined----he was already pee pad trained and, as I said earlier, he was a smart little guy!!

When we first claimed him, his name was going to be Bailey. Then on the way home with him, Rodney made the comment he wanted "a strong name" for him (Remember, the movie "Where the Heart Is"?) and 'Truman' just popped into my head. So from that moment on, Truman was his name. Except of course when he's being particularly ornery, then he's 'Truman Bailey Weaver'!!

For such a little guy, he truly was huge company when Rodney was gone. Then, when we moved out here he kept me busy when Rodney was gone on the ship. He also allowed us to meet lots of people. Seems out here its almost a prerequisite to own a dog! So we met lots of neighbors just out in the neighborhood walking the dog!!

Here are just a variety of pictures to cute not to post.......

Pre-Deployment Adventures

R's ship was pulling out the middle of September, 2006, to be gone for 6 months (which actually turned out to be 9!!), so we took some time to have some memorable adventures together.

We ended up with free tickets to Lego Land and went there for R's birthday.

Darth Vader and R2D2 are made entirely from Legos!!

While in Carlsbad, we made a stop at the gorgeous Flower Fields.

We spent some time at the beach with Truman.

And we went on a camping/hiking trip at Joshua Tree National Park.

But, our biggest, most memorable treat came when we decided to make use of their military discount and do an overnight at Disneyland............

When our hostess at Disneyland Hotel found out this was a pre-deployment visit, she upgraded us to a suite!! See the four big sections of windows on the top floor?? That WHOLE area was our suite! It was the size of eight regular rooms!! The first section on the right was the ONLY bedroom! The second section from the right was our own private open air atrium!!The gazebo opening to the bedroom could be turned to open to the atrium!

It had a sauna, full kitchen with 2 frigs and 2 ovens, table with seating for 12, entertainment center with surround sound, and all the windows would slide open to let in the fresh breeze!! The suite was mainly used for parties.

The coolest thing was that this had been the favorite room of Frank Sinatra and all the Rat Pack had stayed there!! What a treat!!!