Merry Christmas!

Okay, so it takes me awhile to get these pictures out, but at least it's happening. It is so cold right now. I believe it is -5 out right now. The pictures are of Declan and Santa at Hilldale Mall and pictures from his fifth birthday party. He is wearing his birthday crown from school. Declan has been reading so much. It is quite scary. His ability to read must have to do with his great gene pool:)

I have been substitute teaching in Pardeeville, Poynette and Cambria. I love it. I have found my calling. I have never loved a job so much. The kids are great. The hours are great and the longest drive I have is about 17 minutes each way.

Merry Christmas to each one of you. We would love to see all of you. Please have a safe and Merry Christmas!

OBAMA, OBAMA, OBAMA--we are so happy for this country. I will attempt to leave it at that. The first picture is of Marty and Declan on the morning of the election. Marty took Declan with him before work to vote with him.

Here is Declan on Halloween. He was the Red Ranger from Power Rangers.

I took Declan to the Pardeeville Fire Department yesterday. They had a tour for pre-schoolers. He had an awesome time. Last night we had Family Night at his school. He gave us a tour of his school and we played in different stations.

Today Declan had his five-year physical and had blood drawn. That didn't go so well. He was quite upset. He did manage to swindle about five stickers from the nurses!

Pictures!

I finally figured out how to put pictures on here. I am getting old. Declan is watching Phineus and Pherb and Marty is watching the Brewers game. Today Declan had soccer practice. Last night we went to the Pardeeville Football homecoming game.

What my day is like

I know that I said that I was going to update this site frequently. Time is going by so fast. I think I got a job today, but it isn't the one that I really want. The one I really want, I won't hear about until next week. I need to get back to a paying job because it is a full-time job being in the house and it doesn't pay s***. I am keeping extremely busy. I typically make breakfast for Marty and Declan in the morning and then Marty leaves for work. That's when I start picking up and cleaning. Declan's school bus picks him up at 1040 and then I do more cleaning. I take Fritz outside and hit the tennis ball for him. Declan comes home at about 215. We talk about what he did in school, what he had for lunch and if there were any issues:) Then we take a nap. I start dinner and Marty gets home. We sit down and have dinner together. We have been working with Declan on prayers and the sign of the cross. We usually play UNO and always read books at night. We are working with Declan on being able to lose and not always having to be the winner. We tell him that Bobby Flay doesn't always win and that he STILL congratulates his opponent--Of course I am thinking, yes, he does congratulate them, knowing that he is a millionaire!



That is what I do in a nutshell. I also look for jobs. I have applied for my substitute license to teach, but that will take approximately three more weeks. My hope is that I get the OTHER job that I want, which would be 20 hours a week and it's work-from-home and then I could also substitute teach. More updates later on how all of this pans out. If I like substitute teaching, I am going to go back to school to be a teacher. Now that Declan is in school, it would be nice to have a job that allows me to be off when he is off. Again though, we'll see how the substituting goes.



Declan has been doing well in school. They have been talking for two weeks about apples. Marty and I were like, how much is there to know about apples. We are thinking that his teacher may be an apple lobbyist. I think we are learning more than Declan about how things operate in schools. Luckily, the teacher sends home a newsletter each week to give us all "friendly reminders" of what we should be doing as parents. A couple of things that we have found interesting though were that there is a family night at his school which is kind of being presented as a parent/teacher conference, but then there is a disclaimer that states that there will be no discussion about how children are doing. The other thing that I found interesting about Family Night is that there are no siblings allowed. What are moms and dads supposed to do? Hire babysitters? My guess is that people won't go because of this.



I do have a funny story. Last week I was waiting for Declan to get off of the bus. I had the garage door open and was trying to organize the garage. All of a sudden I heard the side door open. Declan walked through and I said, where did you come from? Everyday they drop him off at the front of our house. I wait for him on the porch or I am doing something in the garage with the door open. Soooooo...he was visually upset. They had dropped him off in the back yard, on the Breezy Point Road side because there was a different bus driver. I said to him that it was okay and gave him a hug. HERE IS WHERE THE FUNNY PART COMES IN. He told me, "I tried to tell them I live on Lintner Road with the Barack Obama sign". I laughed so hard. He didn't understand why I thought it was funny. Maybe the driver is a Republican--Family First--dropping my future democrat off in the back!

On Wednesday we received a card from our vet that was so caring and inside she enclosed the following poem. I don't know who wrote it, but I wanted to add it. Our vet is awesome. She doesn't know a great deal about us, but as we stood there on Bonie's last day, I explained to her that I felt that Bonie had saved my life. She walked with me everyday for two years after I had my surgery. The vet said that she didn't know that (probably because one of us has put on some of our weight).

Her Long Sleep

She wagged her tail to the very last
And she smiles in her last long sleep;
The troubles of her life, for her are past!
A shrine in my heart I’ll keep.
Her soul - for I feel that she had a soul
And she thought real thoughts, I know.
Has found at the ultimate end, life’s goal,
In the Heaven where good dogs go.

She has lived with me and suffered with me
Shed tears in her dog-like way.;
She has placed her paw at times on my knee
In a vain attempt to say;
“God never gave us that wondrous power,
To tell all the things we feel,
But I want to say, in my canine way,
That my sympathy is real.”

So I loved my dog to the very end,
And she in our daily walk,
Was never just a dog, but a friend
And we had no need to talk.
And I hope, when the summons comes for me
To embark on the unknown tide,
I shall find her eyes in the paradise
They say is on the other side.

Our new blog site and Wishbone

We are only eight years into the new millenium, but I thought today would be a good day to start this blogging thing. I have been subjecting my friends and family to talking for close to 37 years now. I am thinking that if I have a place where I can write what is going on, maybe I will spend less time talking. Yeah, right!


Wishbone, 10, passed away Monday, September 15, 2008.


Wishbone was born a beagle, but soon was our "child". She came into our lives on December 18, 2007. April picked her up from a co-worker's house. She was in an aquarium (there was no water) and let out a huge howl. Little did we know that was the first of many howls we would hear from her. That first night she slept on Marty's neck and peed on him. When the vet came to check her out, we thought she was a male until the vet informed us, that she was most definately a female.


Wishbone loved to eat--anything. She was a skilled swimmer and loved to swim in Grandma's pool. When we lived in Madison, she loved the dog parks. She could both run, walk and swim at the dog park. Wishbone walked every morning with April for two years after her surgery. "You want to go for a walk?", were her favorite words. Seeing how excited she was every morning was so motivational.


This past weekend Wishbone barely ate anything. What she did eat, she could not keep down. She was extremely weak and had lost weight. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning I woke up believing that I would find her dead. That did not happen. I took her to the vet and Wishbone is now in a much better place. We are so extremely sad.

To you Wishbone, we let out a loud howl.