Home again

It sure was fun while it lasted. Back to work - which is fun in it's own way. Everyone has their own plans now - Tyler in Goleta, Dorothy here, and Brighton somewhere in between Davis and Atascadero. Back to the grind!

Vacation!

The whole family is in Colorado now, and the real vacation's about to start. We spent the better part of the last two days helping Sumner and Kristan move many years of belongings into their newly refinished basement. Before they finished it, the basement was just a big open space filled with boxes and boxes and more boxes. Filled. And how it's been finished into the most beautiful space - offices for each of them, a guest bedroom, and a fair amount of storage space. And amazingly enough, it seems that everything is going to fit!

For the kids it wasn't much of a vacation, but for me - disengaging my mind from the pressures of life - it is the perfect vacation. I get to help organize things - my brain's favorite activity - and help my adored brother at the same time. What could be better?

The kids are enjoying each other's company I think - they spend their non-work hours in their living space in the basement (yes, there's even room for three air mattresses and the junk from three grown kids in the basement AFTER all the boxes were moved back in!) on the two laptops we brought.

Today is fun day for them, though. Elitch Gardens - BIG roller coasters. I'm not a roller coaster fan for the most part - the Disneyland California Adventure rides are about as challenging as I can get between my motion sickness and a tweaky back. So my plan is to stay home and unpack boxes - fun for me, too!

Yesterday I spoke with our housesitter briefly, and she tells me that Sparky is doing really well. Yea!

Poor little Sparky

I'm in Littleton with my brother this week, attending a conference for work. Bob called me to tell me that my dachshund Sparky escaped from the yard and got into a fight with something. Bob and Scamp spend hours trying to find him with no luck. The next morning they found out that Sparky had been picked up by Animal Control at Atascadero Lake! He NEVER goes beyond the next couple of yards when he wanders, I just can't imagine what happened unless he ran away from something and ended up there. In any case, the angels at Animal Control took my Spark to the vet and he ended up "looking like Frankenstein" with two drainage tubes. Poor puppy!

The difficult thing is that Bob and all three kids planned on joining me here for a real, true family vacation. We have a housesitter planned, but it's so hard to ask someone to take on a chore like that, when you know it should be you. We're hopeful that if we pay our housesitter what it would cost me to change my flight plan, we can have it taken care of.

This might sound silly, but I sure would like it if you'd please pray for my little Sparky. And maybe even for my sad heart...

The latest from the D

We just found out yesterday that she's going to have to have a massive amount of work on her teeth. Not really surprising, considering. But still icky.

On a fun note, she's on another baking kick. The other day it was chocolate chip cookies. Then creamy chocolate pie (a family favorite) and today when I got home, Snickerdoodles!! Of course, she never actually eats any of them - still a size O - but the temptation Bob & I suffer.... She's decided it's going to be something different every day through the end of school.

Now if she would only learn to clean up her own messes...