And then along came Ranger.

I’m not exactly a dog person. I mean, I have three children, and that’s all the animal I need in my house. I’m more of an intact-leather-sofa, clean-smelling-home-type person.

But it’s really incredible the things you’ll do for those wild animals, isn’t it? Especially when they have their daddy’s smile.

One minute you’re relishing your freedom to go and do wherever and whatever you please and then come home to a nice-smelling, non-chewed up residence, and the next minute you’re fanatically and systematically refreshing the website of a local animal shelter trying to get first pick of the newest drop-offs when their profiles go live that evening.

Our kids have been absolute champs over the past few years. They enthusiastically jumped on board with the notion of leaving family and moving across the country to Portland, where we began a completely different life surrounded by completely new people. After a year of adjusting to private school and two full-time working parents and doing their best to make friends out here in a completely new environment—COVID came rolling in like a mack truck, and overnight, the kids and I were working and schooling from home. Alone. 

It’s not surprising that pet adoptions skyrocketed in 2020.

Still, Kelley and I really didn’t want a dog. I mean, we’d managed to make it 18 years of marriage without one. We knew the hard work that would go into caring for a pet, and honestly, we just didn’t want the inconvenience. Or the additional expense. Or the responsibility. Or the smells.

But you don’t really get a dog for the convenience, do you?

So, two months ago, our family grew by four feet—er, paws.

Meet Ranger the Peacemaker (as his AKC papers refer to him). Ranger, a Rhodesian ridgeback, joined our family in mid-March, and we’ve been acclimating to the pet life ever since.

But we can’t really talk about Ranger without mentioning Rosie, his littermate—our first puppy.

When the Rhodesian ridgebacks from the local animal shelter were adopted ahead of us, we brought Rosie home from an Oregon breeder a few weeks later, before we met Ranger. Though we loved her immediately, she brought a whirlwind of chaos with her. We were exhausted from the constant movement and energy and nipping and biting. The only time we were able to enjoy her was, well, when she was sleeping. I experienced the emotional rollercoaster of post-puppy depression. (Somehow I’d missed the fact that puppies don’t sleep through the night. Why didn’t anyone tell me this??) I’d sit in our bathroom floor and sob, sleep-deprived, sweating from huffing a 20-lb puppy up and down a flight of apartment stairs 12 times a day, and absolutely convinced our life was over. How many more years do we have with her? I’d ask Kelley. At eight weeks old, I was already counting down the days until our life could return to normal.

We’d actually wanted two ridgebacks ever since we read a book about two former CIA operatives-turned-parents who had them (find the book here) and subsequently researched the breed, and I told Kelley I never wanted to go through the puppy phase again, so if the goal was to have two, we would have two NOW. Rip the puppy bandaid off all at once, and then never re-adhere it. Plus, an extra pup would hopefully teach Rosie some bite inhibition and basic manners—and give us all a little break from the gashes and scratches covering our extremities. (Think Rachel Green in the Friends episode where she buys a hairless cat.) The vet agreed, so we contacted the breeder.

Rosie’s breeder had sent us a picture of a male puppy she still had available, and we immediately felt that he needed to be part of our family. Friends told us we were crazy to even consider getting two puppies, and we knew they were right, but we were drawn to him in a way that felt more than just a whim or irresponsible decision. So Kelley and the boys drove the four hours to the breeder’s house one Saturday in Grants Pass and brought him straight home.

Ranger is such a sweet, laid-back, happy puppy. He just wanted to cuddle and rarely nipped at us. He brought with him a sense of calm and peace to our home. Meanwhile, Rosie continued to become more fearful and fear-aggressive, to the point where she would growl and lunge to bite us anytime we tried to handle her. We were constantly walking on eggshells around her, trying our darnedest to keep her calm. We had two different veterinarians and an animal behaviorist express concerns about her being in a home with children, especially one with autism who paced around the apartment several times a day lost in his own imagination. We weren’t even able to allow the kids to interact with her.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that this wasn’t the right home for Rosie, and the most loving thing we could do for her was to help find her a home in which she could thrive. As painful as it was to say goodbye to our first family pet, we coordinated with the Rhodesian Ridgeback Rescue of Oregon to rehome her. (The breeder wouldn’t take her back, unfortunately.) She is now enjoying a loving home, without children, with an owner who’s owned three ridgebacks before her.

Immediately our home was peaceful again. We still miss Rosie, but Ranger has been the best little (er, quickly becoming massive) companion for our family.

Rhodesian ridgebacks are an incredible breed. Originally bred to track down and bay lions in South Africa, they are a blend of greyhound, bloodhound, mastiff, African khoikhoi, and Great Dane. They have a signature ridge of hair down their spine that grows in the opposite direction and looks much like a faux-hawk. They are independent, naturally protective, affectionate, intelligent, and athletic, but not hyper like Labradors and boxers or threatening like pit bulls.

Ranger has already doubled in size and weight, and he will grow to likely be close to 100 pounds when fully grown. Despite his size, he is a loving little snuggler. He is our Ferdinand the bull—his favorite activity is sitting in the sunshine smelling the grass and wildflowers. He is friendly and well-adjusted and is responding surprisingly well to training. Our hope is to one day certify him as a service dog. (Though Rhodesian ridgebacks aren’t typically trained as service dogs, he has the right temperament and has been very responsive to cues already.) We just recently certified him as an emotional support animal for Riley, but he really has been just that for all of us. He is exactly what our family didn’t even know we needed, and we are so excited for him to join us in all our future adventures!

Oh, the places we went.

In the moments before the Mr. and I rang in the new year over a binge session of Cobra Kai, we engaged in the obligatory NYE reflections over the past year, and even with all the plot twists and thickening of the last 12 months, we were still grateful to be able to get outdoors and explore quite a bit as a family.

Since I’m laid up in bed with the sniffles today, I thought I would share some of our family’s favorite travel moments from 2021:

SEATTLE, WA (APRIL)

In April, my in-laws flew in to Portland, and we headed to Seattle to explore the city. We stayed at the quirky Graduate Hotel (FYI, the building did not have A/C, which our hot-natured crew really could have used on this particularly warm spring week) and spent a couple of jam-packed days visiting the Space Needle, the zoo, the History of Flight Museum, and Pike Place Market. If you’re ever in Seattle, you really should grab a latte from Storyville Coffee at the market or a gluten-free fried chicken biscuit from Honest Biscuits, two of our favorite spots.

GOLD BEACH, REDWOOD NATIONAL FOREST, AND SCENIC HIGHWAY 101 (JUNE)

If you want to read more about our trip down the Oregon coast into Northern California, you can check out my other blog posts here and here and here. We started with a camping trip to celebrate our middle child’s and the Mr.’s birthdays, including a trip to the Prehistoric Gardens on Highway 101. But when our campsite got rained out night one, our camping trip turned into a beachside retreat. This adventure was probably my favorite of 2021, where we just had to rally and make the best of a disappointing situation, and it ended up being one of the best vacations we’ve had. And I’m convinced the Oregon coast is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

OSWALD WEST (JULY)

Sometime in July, we were itching to escape Portland for a bit, so a quick day trip to Oswald West was in order. I remember this day vividly, the strain and exhaustion of daily life slowly melting away as we climbed over nurse logs and tiptoed across the pebbled creek near the shore. We dined at perhaps our favorite restaurant in Oregon, Public Coast Brewing Co., a Cannon Beach treasure we happened upon when Kelley and I came to the PNW for the first time. With their abundance of gluten-free items on the menu, including the best onion rings I’ve ever tasted, it’s our whole family’s first choice when we’re anywhere near the coast. (Every now and then, we’ll make a special trip to Cannon Beach just because we get a hankering for those onion rings.)

OLYMPIC PENINSULA / ANACORTES / BAKER LAKE, WA (SEPTEMBER)

We may be 0 for 3 when it comes to tent camping in the Pacific Northwest, but our “camping” trip to the Olympic Peninsula was still a very rich experience. You can read more about the highlights of our week-long excursion, and our recommendations if you’re ever in the area, here.

BEND, OR / SMITH ROCK STATE PARK (NOVEMBER)

We kind of decided on a whim to go to Bend for a long Veteran’s Day weekend, but we had travel points through our credit card that paid for the hotel and funds from our charter school allotment to take a field trip to the local High Desert Museum, so we planned a last-minute mini-vacay. Bend is, in a word, sunny. I guess that’s the first thing we notice now as Portlanders. We enjoyed strolling through Drake Park in the downtown area, sipping cups of coffee from the Looney Bean coffeehouse as our kids played on the Columbia Park playground. We stayed at a hotel in the Old Mill District and enjoyed gluten-free pasta from Pastini after window shopping. We saw otters and birds of prey at the High Desert Museum and took our best guesses at landmarks from Pilot Butte after enjoying a breakfast of French toast and banana cream doughnuts from the Dough Nut on Greenwood Avenue. (Seriously, you have to try one sometime. They also have a nice selection of gluten-free doughnuts that our kids devoured.) On our way back to Portland, we stopped for a hike at Smith Rock State Park and were, once again, blown away by the natural beauty that is central Oregon, but not before I introduced our kids to the iconic last Blockbuster video in America, where I fangirled all over the blue and yellow interior. (I loved working at our local Blockbuster when I was in high school.)

Almost three years into calling the Pacific Northwest home, and we still can’t get over the varied beauty that’s here. May we never lose the sense of wonder we feel when we step outside our front door, and may 2022 bring on even more adventures to come.

The day I finally saw in color. (Baker Lake, Washington)

I disabled the last of my social media accounts this week. It might be the most freeing thing I’ve ever done.

I don’t know exactly what’s gotten into me lately, to be honest. Gumption? Sensory overload? Pandemic fatigue? Whatever it is, I’m just a completely different person than I was pre-pandemic, and there’s no going back to life as I once knew it; that includes my social media habits.

I think I noticed that something was different while we were on our recent trip in September. After our day in Port Townsend (see previous post here), we traveled by ferry to Burlington. We spent the next day driving through Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest until we reached Baker Lake to go paddleboarding. (When we Thompsons discover a new hobby, we really commit to it.)

I thought it couldn’t get any better than Lake Crescent, but I was wrong.

Baker Lake is utterly otherworldly. It was like I had been seeing in black and white my entire life and was suddenly seeing color for the first time. The lake was a translucent, bright, almost blinding turquoise under a cerulean sky, surrounded by fuzzy green forest and snowcapped mountains. It was too perfect to seem real. As the influencers say, no filter needed.

And I didn’t really feel the impulse to post it online.

In the moment, all I wanted to do was just be. Be present. Be still. Be in the moment and soak it all in through my eyeballs and not a smartphone screen. I realized that, up until that day, I had always felt so much pressure to document our experiences that I forgot to actually experience them. But Baker Lake was different. I still took some pictures and video, but I no longer felt the pull of social media calling me out of the moment and into a lesser virtual reality. It had lost all of its appeal.

There’s just something about marveling at something marvelous in real time, in real life, that will free you of any inclination to settle for a two-dimensional replica in a tiny Instagram square, hashtag blessed. It makes anything else seem dull. Sitting in the middle of the lake with no one but my family around me, with nothing but the sound of rippling waves and the occasional trout jumping out of the water, I just knew I couldn’t go back to all the societal noise when our vacation was over. All the soundbites and opinions and influencing and ambition and flaunting and bullying and trolling and clickbait and doomsday reporting and bickering over all the current things no longer seemed entertaining or relevant or even desirable.

We had an enjoyable simple picnic by the lake after more than two hours of paddling, and I decided then that my smartphone and social media habits had to change. This was the kind of high-definition I needed. I needed to be more connected to nature than the Internet. I needed more unplugged, adventurous moments like this. I needed to make a regular habit of marveling at the marvelous.

I’m not the only one in our family who felt like a new person after that trip. The best highlight of the day? Our middle son asked if he could be baptized in the lake. He had been considering it for a while, and we’d had many conversations about what it meant, but his anxiety would creep in and he’d back out. But he decided that was the perfect time and place, so Kelley baptized him beside the boat dock with a handful of strangers looking on.

I did unashamedly video that moment, and you can watch it here: