My beloved mutt Hippo has been a comedian (and trouble) from day one... She is food crazy and has had some harrowing experiences because of her appetite. Once she ate an entire box of dry cookie dough. Her stomach bloated up, she had diarrhea, she vomited and was miserable for about 8 hours. Once in the middle of the night she threw up... a plastic bag! I have no idea what was in the bag, or how/when she ate it, thank god she threw it up. When I had my first child she was my night companion. Anytime the baby would cry, she would run into my DD's room and wait patiently for me to come in, like "Mom, the baby is crying!" and she would stay up with me through the night feedings. She also took to licking the top of my DD's bald baby head. My relatives all thought it was gross, I thought it was adorable. When I leave the house she goes on my bed, rearranges the pillows and takes a nap. The second I come home, she jumps down and acts like she was never up there... At age 10, she loves going with my DD up into her tree house (there are little stairs) and then she will slide down the slide, just like a kid. Hippo and DD are best friends and she was the greatest "practice kid" ever.

Eleven years ago I replaced the cheap beige carpet in our house with beautiful Karastan wall-to-wall beige carpet. We have a lot of kids and back in 2004 we still had toddlers. I don't regret the carpets, at that point it was hard to know what type of hardwood to put down on a concrete slab, it seems that engineered hardwoods were an emerging product and solid hardwood planks were not recommended for slab foundations. There were moisture transfer issues that seemed to make hardwood floors a risky proposition back then. Our carpet looks exactly like the close-up sample that AuntJen posted. It looked to me like beautiful sand, the quality is excellent. We paid a fair sum of money for it in part because it did not off-gas, and we installed rubber padding (instead of the compressed foam) which helped prevent goat trails. Now we have a dog who occassionally barfs. So our carpet is stained. And worn out. Having a Dyson vacuum had made all the difference in keeping it looking good when we vacuumed daily, our carpet looked fabulous. Wish we had a Roomba. It's a frieze and I love it. I'd love hardwood floor more, but do not regret the carpeting. My kids played on the floor until five years ago, and the carpet kept the house a little quieter and allowed them to lay on the floor and play anywhere. I certainly miss those days.

I think it looks great and will work just fine, so I'm mostly on board with the "let sleeping marble lie" faction. On the other hand, you know yourself best, and if it's something that you'll notice and be bothered by whenever you use the sink, it's probably worth it to fork over the money now for peace of mind later. That being said, I did get a positive reveal on my Whitehaven so that there's no gunk under the reveal and in hopes of using accessories. Erica L, do you know which drying rack that is? I've looked at some online but was worried that they might be too short to fit front-to-back. And anyone use a cutting board that fits snugly against the sloping inside face? (sorry to hijack)

@aok @my3dogs He has very strong big feet but his nails are never a problem. They never get sharp. I do have them all trimmed regularly at the vet. I think I posted this before but this video shows you how goofy caique's are: http://youtu.be/_DIMJ2eENow My little rescue green cheek also likes to lay on his back and wrestle with my fingers. My rescue nanday rolls on her side next me and sucks on her toe. It is so endearing!