Our Friend, Rex

Ryan and I spent this weekend in Beaumont to throw a shower for our two lovely friends, Thomas and Shelly- soon to be the Sittons! They are wonderful friends of ours, and we're so excited about their big day!

(PS- I look like a giant next to Shelly... she is teensy tiny!!!)

On the way home we stopped in Houston at my parents' house to pick up Bella, who always stays there when we are gone. We call it her Disney World because they take such good care of her. They take her swimming, walking in Memorial Park, she eats and drinks whatever my dad does, etc.

Well, we left Houston a little later than we thought and headed down I-10 and then over to Hwy 71 on our way back to Austin. Just a few miles from Columbus we had a small adventure. We were driving down the road at around 70 mph when a dog darted across the highway. (Side note: I grew up with a dog, I love my dog, but I don't love just any old dog...I'm working on it. Dogs with long hair kinda gross me out because, unless they're really well kept, I don't feel like they're clean. In fact, the word mangy comes to mind) So, this dog darts across the highway, and my heart just drops. I mean, there is no way that he is NOT going to get hit by a car. So Ryan and I, in total agreement, turn around to go pick him up. On our way back to where he is several other cars swerve to miss him as well. Poor little friend.

We get to where he is and pull over to the side of the road. I jump out and try to call him over to the side of the highway- which is difficult when you don't know the dog's name. I went with Bailey because I've always wanted a Bailey. Anyway, Bailey was pretty freaked out but shyly came over to me. He had on a collar but no tag, but you could tell he was really well cared for. After a lot of coaxing we got him in the car, which was not an easy task.

So, now we have a stray dog in the car. Fantastic, he's not on the highway anymore. I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure we really thought about what to do next because if we can't find his owner, he's pretty much coming back to Austin with us. Um, what? I don't really think I thought that through...

So, long story short, we now have Bella

and our new friend, Bailey

who have quickly become two peas in a pod... in the back seat of our car.

We drive around to a couple of gates that lead back to people's ranches. They're all locked, and the houses are so far back on the land that we can't even tell if anyone is home anywhere. One of the ranches as a key pad... We try in vain to punch a few numbers in to see if anyone will come to the gate, but we're out of luck.

So, we make the decision that Bailey is coming to Austin with us, and we'll just try to look up some of the ranch addresses and send them letters to see if they know whose dog this is. In our minds we are already setting up a vet appointment and thinking about where he'll sleep.

Until we come across....

which is a summer camp, located just a few hundred yards up the road.

So, figuring that we have nothing to loose, we drive in to see if anyone there has seen this dog before. I went into the office while Ryan hung out with the kids who, again, are now BFFs.

The office staff knew of one of their counselors, a college aged girl, whose family lives on the ranch next door to Pine Cove (the one with the keypad at the gate). So, they asked her to come and see if she knew who the dog belonged to. After waiting for her for about 20 minutes, she came running over with a football jersey, tall socks and face paint shouting,

"Reeeex, how did you get out?!?!"

I couldn't believe it... What are the chances that the girl who lives next door to Pine Cove was a counselor there? Whoa.

Anyway, she kindly gave us the gate code to her parents' property and swore that they weren't home and would not come and shoot us for entering on to their land. Thanked us a million times over, and we were on our way to Brushy Creek Ranch.

I'm not going to lie, at this point we'd spent almost two hours with our friend Bailey/ Rex, and the two of us were preeeetty attached- to the point that we were sad we found his owners. But, we took him home and said our goodbyes. I almost cried... at least twice.

I guess the whole adventure wore Bella out because she was oooout the rest of the way home.

We love you, Rex!!!! When we got home, you definitely inspired us to go here to think about getting a friend for Bella.