I would like to say that Peach was a well thought out and planned addition to our household, but that wouldn’t be telling it quite like it was. To be fair, we had been talking about the possibility of getting a dog for several months, if not years, leading up to this point. Emily had her heart set on getting a Golden Doodle if and when that time would come. She had been following a couple of breeders on Facebook which is where our story begins. Leading up to the weekend of June 2nd, 2018, Emily saw a post from a breeder near Gainesville, FL that she was following. There was a female dog in their most recent litter that hadn’t yet been claimed. Her temporary name was Sky (her ribbon color to identify her from the pack), and she was the cutest dog that you ever did see. Emily felt that this was the one, so within days we were planning our weekend road trip up to Gainesville to meet the newest member of the Hayes clan.
As we normally do, we decided to make the most of our road trip to Gainesville. The drive is about two hours from Orlando so we left mid morning, arriving just in time for some lunch at the local Great Outdoors Restaurant. The restaurant is situated in a cute little downtown area of High Springs, FL. The restaurant is built in an old opera house, making for quite an interesting interior, with ornate ceilings atop walls that are adorned with taxidermy wildlife. It was a fun place to eat and the food hit the spot as we talked about what it was going to be like meeting our new little buddy. We could tell the boys were super excited.
After lunch we took a few minutes to walk around the downtown area and eventually made our way to a cute coffee shop we spotted on the drive in called the Talented Cookie Company. This was by far the highlight of the day thus far as this place had delicious baked goods, coffee for Emily and Hunter, and a kitschy interior to enjoy out of the blistering Florida summer afternoon. There are additional photos of the interior in the slideshow below. We polished off our dessert snacks and agreed that it was time to make the last leg of our journey to get Peach.
The drive out to the breeder’s location took us quite a way off the beaten path of Gainesville. The last several minutes of the drive were all dirt road with very few houses each occupying quite a bit of land. Lucky that the GPS was aware of the location or we might still be searching for this place. We pulled up the grass driveway and saw a small tent set up in the front yard with the owner (Dawn) hanging out with “Sky” and awaiting our arrival.
Finally seeing the dog, I think it hit us that this was really happening. We all got out of the car and made our way toward the excited dog. She was, of course, curious and spent a bit of time checking us out. The owner was fantastic, answering all of our questions and trying to set our minds at ease as to what was ahead for us. “Sky” spent the rest of her time at the house crawling into the trees and bushes trying to remain hidden. After our last questions were answered, we said our goodbyes and packed up with Sky (who was now officially Peach “Sky”) for the drive back to Orlando.
Emily and the boys had a great time snuggling her as she lay beside them for the better part of the drive home. We stopped for a bathroom and water break on the way where Peach got out to explore. The two hour drive on the way up turned into about a 3.5 hour drive back as the traffic was absolutely horrendous, but lucky for us we had our cute little Peach to distract us.
We arrived home and let Peach explore her new digs. Of course Emily had both a themed bottle of wine and a brand new peach toy for our new little girl to play with. Emily’s photo patience allowed us to get a few really great shots of her. We spent the rest of the evening watching her explore the house and snuggling our new little buddy. I am sure there are many more adventures that await with this little one!
