Our New Puppies

Our New Puppies from Stefan Farrenkopf on Vimeo.

Ahhhh, Florida

Thanks to the wonderful generosity (and company) of Bumma and Grampa, four of the five of us have begun day two of spring break in a resort condo in Orlando. Two days of driving, and an evening at the pool. Leaving the pool, we saw this, captured by Mother's cell phone camera:


Looks farther off than it seemed, and certainly less colorful, but that's the shuttle launch - possibly the very last one. We even saw the boosters fall off. It was an amazing sight to see.

Eldest, meanwhile, is having his adventures in China. It's bright and early there, and we've just gotten word that jet lag plagues the group, but they are off for day of sightseeing in Shanghai.

Cassie's Last Day

This is a sad day.

Youngest woke up with a fever of 101.6 this morning, meaning we have to cancel his birthday sleepover tonight. As if things weren’t sad enough.

Around Christmas, our dog Cassie started losing a lot of weight. She is getting older, and she had a shoulder injury, so we weren’t too alarmed, though we kept an eye on her.

One morning last week we discovered that she seemed bloated. When home remedies we found on the web didn’t help, I took her to the vet.

After they drained the fluid the vet was able to feel her abdomen.

Cassie has a large tumor in her abdomen, almost certainly cancer. She hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in days. Her digestive system seems to have completely shut down.

There were many tears in the house last night, and many sad but important talks with the kids. Today I’m staying home with Youngest; the others are all at school. Tonight, with the sleepover canceled, we’ll have one more night at home with our dog. Tomorrow I’ll take her for one last walk, and then to the vet. I’ll come home alone.

Winter '08 '09

I’m sitting at home with a sick seven year old today. We’ve just graduated from Madgascar 2, which was hilarious, and have moved on to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It’s a sad day, which I’ll address in the next post. But I’ve uploaded pictures and want to journal some of what’s been going on with the family.


We've had some big snow-falls this winter.

We visited Lakeside with some close friends, where the kids did some sledding:




And walked on Lake Erie:



On a snow day, Eldest won a ten dollar dare:







We had two birthdays:



We had hot chocolate with good friends:


Someone got her braces off:



And, sometimes, we just got goofy:

Learning Photoshop

Youngest's New Room

Dictated by Youngest:



At first my room was really babyish and it had baby paper around the walls. And then we decided to change it.
And the first thing we did was push all the furniture out and then take the wall paper off and then start to paint.

And then we put all the furniture back in and took down the curtain. And then we put all the knick-knacks in and then I think that’s it.


Now my room looks super-hero style. My new poster is all Marvel people.




I like to find super heroes in it.


The end.

Some Shots Of Eldest

Eldest has had a busy fall. As soon as soccer wrapped up (he was voted "Most Improved" by his teammates), he was asked to join the cast of the fall play, "See How They Run."

Here are some pix from that show and from the fall choir concert.

Teaching Our Children How To Beg (And One How To Campaign)

The one rule for Halloween this year: we would not be buying costumes. The kids could look around the house and come up with ideas, but we're weren't going to go to crazy- overpriced- no- return- policy- scary- bloody- temporary- Halloween- store to buy anything.

Daughter wore a poodle-skirt that Bumma made for Mother when Mother was in college. Eldest and I dressed as each other, mostly for school.



Youngest came up with his own idea.

"Joe Biden!"

"Really? Joe Biden?"

"I wanna be Joe Biden!"

We thought that was a fantastic idea. "We can even paint your hair white."

"Really?'

"Yeah. That'd be great."

"Then I want to wear a nametag."

"A name tag? Okay. Why?"

"People might think I'm John McCain."

Of course, we had to buy the white hair spray. What luck! I got the very last can in stock at crazy- overpriced- no- return- policy- scary- bloody- temporary- Halloween- store.

After a quick trick-or-treat at Oma's house:

We went to Bumma's neighborhood to trick-or-treat with cousins:



including this incredible cutey on his first Halloween:


Unfortunately, no pix of Prince Caspian or Dale Earnhart Jr., cousins who joined us after cameras were put away.

I did a little research. If you now have as much candy in your house as we have in ours, and similar amounts of self-discipline, the word you'll be looking for in a couple of days is transient lingual papillitis. Enjoy!

Halloween 08

Eldest and I dressed as each other for school today.

Obama Rally in Dublin

Yesterday our family went to the Obama/Biden Rally in Dublin with some good friends. After a lunch at the North Market, we headed to Dublin Coffman High School to wait in line. Good company and the good fortune of being the the right spot in line to get to stay in the shade made the 3 hour wait go by quickly.




Once we got inside, it was another 2 hours before the rally actually began. We got lucky again - seats in the bleachers with the sun behind us and a great view of the podium. After speeches by several Ohio Democrats and an introduction by John Glen, Barack Obama and Joe Biden took the stage.


Here is a video clip of the tail end of Obama's speech:


Everyone is still smiling after a long but exciting day.