When Your Parents turn 80

Last month we traveled to New York for my Dad's 80th birthday.

My Mom who is 83, had just gotten out of the hospital 2 days before we arrived. You may know she had a relapse of her leukemia. Her doctor gave her a choice,"We can do a strong chemo, but you will have to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks, or we can do a 'medium' chemo and you can go home in a few days." To this my Mom replied, "I have to go home, it's Frank's 80th birthday on Saturday." The doctor, who has been taking care of Mom for 3 years, smiled and replied, "Oh, I see you married a younger man!"

Sad News

So sorry to have to report that Pepper is no longer with us. She just started refusing her treats, then her food, then even people food. She was vomiting alot and even with medication we could not stop it. She was losing quite a bit of weight. The vet said she had 'Lesions" on her x-rays. Cancer. I'm glad she did not suffer too long.
We are still adjusting to not having a dog. It's so weird.

Sweet Pepper

To be fair, I thought I should blog about my own dog.


Pepper is a Cairn Terrier (the same as Toto in the Wizard of Oz) She will be 14 years old on May 3rd. She was easily the wildest puppy I ever had. She was even nicknamed 'Tornado' by my aunt who was visiting from Austria. Of course she has calmed down now at her age, except for when she tore her ACL jumping down the stairs about a year and a half ago. She sleeps quite a bit now, but still loves her dinner, treats, walks, and play dates with Willi. She is definitely 'Mommy's dog' and follows me around whenever I am home.

Here are a few pictures:

Here comes the 'Diesel'!

Meet Diesel. He is Beth and Tim's new puppy, a Great Dane/Black Lab mix. Mostly Great Dane. He weighed 19 pounds when they got him about 6 weeks ago and now he is 50 pounds at only 4 1/2 months!
The name Diesel came from Shaqille O'Neil who is playng for the Phoenix Suns now. Tim says Diesel 'has a lot of torque but not much speed' I think he will have plenty speed with those long legs!

Wild Willi

Everyone meet my new 'grand-puppy,' Willi!

He is a piebald dachshound adopted by Chris in November. Since then, he has wiggled his way into our hearts. I get to puppy-sit on weekends if Chris needs a chance to catch up on school work, or if he plays golf with Mark.

Go Suns!

Believe it or not, until December 6th, I had never been to any professional sports game. This was my first and it was great. And the Suns won. Go Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shaquille O'Neal and Leandro Barbosa!

Thanksgiving 2008

Since we met in the Army, and have always lived far away from our families, we had a lot of Thanksgiving dinners with just the four of us.
Then we realized we were not the only ones in this situation, and decided to invite other 'lone' families for dinner on that day.

Each year the guest list has gotten larger. This year we had 21 people.

When we were done eating, we played a Thanksgiving trivia game and learned alot about Thanksgiving history.

For example:

What vegetable did the pilgrims have available for thanksgiving but did not use because they thought it was poisonous?

A. Beans B. Pumpkin C. Tomatoes D. Potatoes E. Cauliflower

Anwer to trivia question: D. Potatoes

Hmm... hard to imagine Thanksgiving without potatoes!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!