As of the 31st of December 2015, I broke up with my long term boyfriend that I lived with, and on top of that my mother moved to Whanganui, a three hour drive from Wellington. So heading into 2016, I was under completely new circumstances. Thankfully both my older siblings were in New Zealand at that stage so we packed up the car and travelled a bit around the North Island. I got to make some amazing memories up in Rotorua where my dad lives, and then spent several weeks exploring Whanganui with mum.
In February I got a new flat in Wellington, so for the first time in my life, I moved into a house with a stranger and started to patch back together my life. This was a huge learning curve, and I am so grateful for this time. Having only lived in the outer cities of Wellington, I had never truly got to live the 'Wellington' life so it was wicked to be able to do that. Diego and I explored so many new walks, and had many adventures over this time.
During this time we also met Richie McPaw and his lovely owner at an organised dog walk, and quickly became friends. Both Diego and Richie get on so well, and I always love when we get to meet up with him for a walk.
Unfortunately it didn't work out in Wellington for us, so once again I packed up Diego, and all my stuff and moved up to Whanganui. This was an experience, that's for sure. Diego became great friends with Chico, and we started to see Chico slowly come out of his shell and show more personality. We adventured around so many walks in Whanganui, and I really came to love the beauty of the city and its surrounding areas.
We hit June off with a challenge of walking 150 kilometres within the month, this being a challenge as the weather had started to show its Winter colours. We conquered that challenge, only just, and I found lots of new areas to explore as Diego and I hit the pavement. June is also Diego's birthday month, so along with a cake and gifts we took a weekend trip to Wellington and met up with some doggy friends. I even had my first rabbit photoshoot, where I met the lovely Piper.
In July, I moved back to Upper Hutt (a city north of Wellington) as I couldn't find a decent job in Whanganui and had finally run out of funds. I managed to score a job in Upper Hutt at a place where I had previously worked, and they hired me within the week. This meant it was a quick change, so I moved in with my Aunty for a week... surprise, that week turned into four months. Diego wasn't allowed to live with me there, so my wonderful mother kept him on for that time and I visited every weekend. July also saw the craze over the large colourful caterpillars from the Warehouse for Greyhounds, and Chico could not miss out on that!
One of my school friends got his first puppy, a beautiful red husky boy named Mowgli! I learnt early on that I was lucky with Diego's ability to pose for a photoshoot, because it was hard to get Mowgli to sit still.
Speaking of sitting still, Chico learnt some new tricks towards the end of the year after going to dog obedience classes! He is very proud of his ability to sit, and will do it immediately when treats come out.
October came around, and I started the month with a bang with this guinea pig photoshoot. However, that is as exciting as Halloween got for us this year. I ran out of time, and ideas, and was super hectic that from here the blog posts lessened as well.
November brought terrible times, with Chico destroying himself trying to chase a rabbit. With all four bandages he was quite the sight! He ripped the skin, and some flesh from all four feet's pads and broke a toe. That toe had to have three surgeries to successfully amputate. Thankfully, that third surgery was a charm and it has now healed perfectly. This gave me the opportunity to learn how to make Russian Fudge as I tried to fundraise for all the vet bills. Over the next two months I managed to raise $700 profit to go towards his vet bills from selling fudge and dog biscuits.
At the end of November, I also managed to score Diego and I a house of our own (rent not owned). I moved in first, got settled and then moved Diego in a few weeks after. It is so amazing to end the year back together with Diego, and be able to set up our lives properly. December didn't hold up too much excitement, just a lot of getting settled and planning ahead for a new year. At the very end of December my friend got another puppy, this time a little Shiba Inu girl named Frankie. So of course I had to go round there with my camera for photoshoots (Which I will upload in a blog post shortly).
As you can tell, this past year has been incredibly unsettled, a lot of moving and changes but I am so happy to say that going into this new year I have managed to start a routine. I have learnt that Diego thrives on routine so I want to make sure there are minimal changes this year as we work over some issues he has gained over the past year. I also have lots of exciting projects through DaisyPets coming up that is going to keep me very busy. I slacked quite a bit on the blog towards the end of last year so I want to make sure the blog becomes a priority again. Thanks for sticking with us for another year, and hope 2017 is amazing for you all <3
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