With gratitude

Thank you to all who have sent emails, cards, gifts and called us to share your condolences. We truly appreciate it. We still miss Mia very much and our house continues to feel empty. But, we know that with time it will get easier for us.

As promised, we have posted just some of our favorite memories of Mia. We have hundreds of photos, but we think we chose some great ones to document Mia's time with us. 

Mia's story is a heartwarming one. We adopted her on November 12th, 2004, when David and I lived in Overland Park, Kansas. We had been married for just 4 months. Samantha's supervisor at the time found Mia walking on the side of the road near his home in Lenexa. He brought Mia into his home for about a week. After many attempts to find her owners, she was not claimed. We visited her at his home and immediately fell in love with her. She walked right up to David and gave him a few licks on the face. 

The selection of the name "Mia" was purposeful. With such a sweet disposition and with no one to claim her, we thought "Mia," which means "mine" in Italian, fit best. We were proud to claim her as our own.

November 12th, 2004 - The day we adopted Mia. She warmed up to us right away. Here she is snuggling with David just a few hours after bringing her home. 

Many of you may know that Mia delivered a litter of puppies soon after we adopted her. The first time we brought Mia to the vet they thought she had just delivered a litter, and then when we brought her in a few days later they determined she was pregnant and due soon. Five of the 6 puppies were born November 18th, 2004 and the 6th was born in the early morning hours of November 19th. At the time of this photo were still waiting to meet number 6. 

Fortunately, we were able to find great homes for all 6 puppies. In fact, we know 5 of the 6 owners pretty well so we receive updates from time to time. Samantha's brother and good friend, Margot, adopted two of them. We see Tank and Chloe frequently and we are so glad they are around to be great reminders of Mia. 

June 2005 - Love this one. Samantha dressed Mia in her Burberry scarf. She was a stylin' dog.

Doing what she loved best - laying around and sleeping. Mia would always put her head on our couch pillows to rest. In this case, Samantha put a blanket on her to provide more comfort.

 

January 2006 - Best Buds - Mia with her favorite person in our family, David.

March 2007 - Gabby was just days old. Mia decided she wanted to get as close as possible to her while laying on our bed.  

March 2007 - Look at that snout! Gabriella was less than a month old when we took this photo. One of our favorite photos of Mia checking out Gabby. She was still trying to figure out what she was doing in our house!

September 2007 - Mia has always loved being close to us and this was one of the many times she made herself comfortable with us.

November 2008 - Gabby and Mia lounging together. The last few weeks before Mia's passing, Gabby came up with cute names for Mia, such as "Mama Mia" and "Special Mia." She loved to call her these names whenever she got close to her.

January 2009 - This is one of the last photos we took of Gabriella and Mia in early January. Mia was laying on the couch like she always did and Gabby insisted that she lay next to her. David grabbed the camera in our bedroom and took this from the upstairs landing before either one of them moved. They really did love each other's company.