Meet the new addition to the Verlo family, Winnie. We believe she is a Lab, German Shepherd, Doberman mix, and 100% adorable.

I’m cute!

One of the many joys of puppies is their boundless energy, and immediate unconditional love. It is this love and energy that keeps our patience in check when her crying gets us up two to three times a night as we are potty training. It was during this early potty training process that we realized how awful our backyard lighting situation was. Its the little things that perplex us about the previous owner’s tastes, including these beauties:

We have two of these sexy cans.

Originally we thought that the best solution would be just to install a decent motion sensor flood light.  But after getting the flood light up, we realized it shined directly in our eyes as we walked back into the house.  So, back to the store we go.

In this next photo, you can see we already had a smaller flood light by the garage door.  We decided to put the motion sensor light in that place, and put a decorative light by the patio door.

Old floodlight on the left, blinding new floodlight on the right.

After about ten minutes staring at the vast number of lighting options at Menards (which is completely overwhelming, by the way), we decided on this:

Mike wants you all to know that he didn’t turn off the breaker for this project (???).  Instead, he simply turned off the light switch and used a voltage detector prior to removing the old light to make sure electricity wasn’t still flowing through the lines.

The “will this kill me?” detector.

“Sara, take a photo of me for the blog.”

Here is our *second* new outside light.

We’ll have the flood lights on constantly so that they can be motion activated whenever Winnie decides to do her business on the far side of the yard.

This is what a grownup party deck looks like, kids. Don’t worry, we’re saving our pennies for major updates here as well.

Winnie decided to take a nap during the installation process (probably because she was so full after dinner – look at that belly!).

Puppy life is exhausting.