Shadow Update

I took Shadow to the vet and after a few hours and a few hundred dollars we found out that he is extremely anemic. They're not sure why, but they put him on an antibiotic and prednisone (steroid). He was so anemic that if he had been much worse they would have had to do a blood transfusion! So, I'm very thankful we took him to the vet today! He'll be staying up in our house until he starts to feel better. Right now he's just laying around.

Thanks to anyone who may have said a prayer for our special kitty!

Who's That Dog?

This is a picture of our dog, Suzi, taken last fall (I believe):


This is a picture of Suzi taken this week!


Suzi and her Boy


After living with a hairy monster for over three years, I had had enough! On Friday of last week, we took Suzi to PetSmart and had her hair cut. It looked odd to us at first, but now we're used to it. I think she loves it, and I know I do! No more big ole clumps of hair in the floor.

Now if we could just shave the cat...

Nuttin' Much

going on here! At least today there's not.

Yesterday I took Neal to our church's Mission's Conference luncheon. He enjoyed seeing some friends and listening to the missionary. Then we went to the doctor for his blood work (Pro-Time). We had to wait for an hour! But then we were 1 hour and 20 minutes early! We didn't want to drive all the way home and have to come back, so we figured they could fit us in. There was a steady stream of people waiting to see the vampire nurse. As a refresher, the first time we had his blood checked for thickness it was 1.2. That was extremely thick, but turned out to be perfect since he received his pacemaker the next day. Then the next week it went up to 1.6, the following week it was 2.0, and yesterday it was 2.3! The goal is for it to be between 2.5 and 3.0. He will get to stop taking Coumadin on May 28th, so we figure we'll have it just right by the time he is finished taking the blood thinner!

Last night Neal's parents and sister, Janet, came over for dinner. Actually they brought us dinner! They picked up some KFC chicken and brought homemade potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw. Janet picked up some cream puffs and iced them with chocolate frosting. We picked fresh strawberries out of our patch yesterday, so we topped the cream puffs off with half a strawberry. Wow! That was yummy!!!

Here's Neal's cream puff...


I tried to take a picture of Neal eating the cream puff, but he was being very difficult! Don't you see the mischievousness in his eyes!!!


Anyway, after a full day yesterday, Neal is wiped outtoday! For his exercise we did walk back into the woods to look at our raspberry patch. Earlier this year he transplanted our raspberries and put them along a fence at the edge of our woods. I don't think we'll get many raspberries this year, but they should be producing pretty good next year.

Here's another picture from the weekend. Beth bathed her cat on Saturday. If you know anything about her cat, Symon, you know that Neal refers to him as the demon cat. Symon does not like to be held, and he only wants to be rubbed in the morning...and that's only on his terms. i.e. he does the rubbing, not the humans. We took this picture because it's very unusual for Symon to willingly lay down next to anyone. Why was he doing it? He was COLD! He was still wet here and he was trying to warm up on Neal's blanket. It's really quite sad...


That's it for today. I think we're going to try to play a board game with the kids. We'll see if Neal's up for it!

A Little Fun...A Little Pain!

Late this afternoon, I went out and went sledding with the kids. We had a great time until I got to the "jump." Ben told me how cool it would be and the sled would fly into the air a bit. Cool! Well, my 41 year old body says "not so cool!" My sled turned me around backwards and I hit the "jump" (which by the way was the cinderblock around our campsite) with my back! Ouch! I didn't cry, thank you very much, but I sure did laugh loudly. Kind of like "ha ha, haa, haa, HAAAA, HAAAA, AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Beth told me later she could hear me from inside the house and couldn't tell if it was a laugh or a cry. I said "definitely a laugh." Well, I'm not laughing now. I'm in pain! But, it was SO worth it! ;o) We had a great time. I think my rear was frozen and I couldn't feel pain for a while until I thawed out. We sledded for about an hour and then I decided I needed to get a picture of our house in the snow. It's after 5:00 pm when this picture was taken...thus the darkness. It was pretty cloudy all day anyway, so it wouldn't have looked much different at noon.

When I came up on the porch the picture below is what I saw. You can't see it, but Suzi is whining. She wanted to be out there where all the fun and pain laughter was going on!

The White Death

I spoke to my brother Bob this morning. He's a truck driver and lives in Indiana (about an hour from Cincinnati). He said on the news last night he heard the weatherman say something like "you'd better get to the store and get your milk...the White Death is on its way!" Well, we didn't quite have enough snow to count as "the white death" but my kids were happy! I'd say we got at least two inches when all was said and done. The kids have had a blast today. I had planned on doing school with them, but we haven't gotten any done yet! There's always tomorrow (and maybe tonight!).

Here's some pictures from our day today:

This picture was taken at 7:55 am.

This picture was taken at 9:40 am ... almost 2 hours later.

Rocking chairs on my porch.

The other end of my porch.

The woods in front of our house by the driveway -- which you can't see right now.

This is Beth and the "oldest living snowball ever." Apparently Sponge Bob has the "oldest living bubble ever."

Birdfeeder on our back deck.

Beth and Symon. He was okay if she held him, but didn't like it when she tried to set him down in the snow!

Suzi insisted on being outside on her zipline today!


After playing in the snow for about 4 hours, the kids came in for lunch. I made them a hot blackberry cobbler for dessert from frozen blackberries that Ben had picked last summer. When Ben was done he came in and told me how good it was and then gave me a big smile:

Best Friends

This is Shadow the "fat, black cat" and Suzi the "phobia dog." (Suzi is afraid of shadows (the real thing, not the cat), men in hats, and crossing bridges.) They were playing with each other and having such a good time. So I got out my camera and was going to video tape them. So, what did they do? Lay down, of course!

Beth's Bed

There are three things to look at here.

1. The bed -- we moved Beth into this bed a month or two ago. She had a single bed, and really wanted a full size. This bed was the bed Neal and I used for the first 8 or 9 years of our marriage, and it used to belong to his great-grandfather.

2. The blanket -- this blanket came from South Korea. Beth's grandparents had a friend of ours who is in the military buy it this past spring when he was in Korea. They saved it for her birthday (well, almost....they gave it to her a month or two early when she got the bed) It is the softest blanket!

3. The cat -- that is Beth's pride and joy -- and my adversary! He is beautiful on the outside, but not so much on the inside. The only time he's friendly to us is first thing in the morning when he needs to rub on someone/something, and when he's cold. Otherwise, forget it!

Scenes You Will Not See in a School Classroom

The kids relaxing while I read to them from "Little House on the Prairie." (Suzi doesn't look too relaxed though) LOL

Beth disturbed just a "little bit" during her spelling test. She doesn't mind though!

Symon visiting Ben's school book basket. One of his favorite places to sit and look out the window.

Aaaahhh...the joys of homeschooling!