Farewell dear friend...

Dearest Tess

July 1997 - November 2011

Farewell to gentle Tess. 

She has been part of our family since its inception. Indeed, we brought her home the very week we returned to Ithaca from our honeymoon. She was our first "child" before there were children. 

She was there through the grad school years. She stuck next to me day in and day out while I wrote my dissertation (literally: she even accompanied me when I left my desk to use the bathroom). 

She and I recovered from major surgery together: I from open heart surgery; her from the removal of an enormous mast-cell tumor from the back of her leg. 

She moved with us from Ithaca to Saint Louis, and bore the transition of having a stay at home (dissertation writing) dog-mom to an always-at-the-office (tenure-track) working dog-mom.

She waited with us as we looked for the coming of Jesse and Evelyn. She was there when we welcomed them home and graciously accepted a different kind of life, namely one which meant her being relegated to the status of ... a dog.
She suffered all the moves of recent months (3 different houses in 8 weeks)--even when she wasn't feeling well.

Through it all, she has been a faithful, quiet, gentle presence in our home and our life. She loved her people.  And we loved her.

We miss you already, dear Tess.

Sunday Snapshot

(I'm trying something new: the "Sunday Snapshot"--i.e., just a favorite picture with, at most, a caption. This will help me keep the blog current, even if I've no time to do anything other than upload one (or two) pictures.)

This one is from August. It was hot and the kids were pretending to be "pigs in mire". I appreciated that, although they were behaving like beasts (literally), they were using fancy terms to describe the game.

For a laugh

This video cracks me up, so just thought I'd share. It's from this past September and features a family biking event--in the basement of the Dando's house where we were staying, everyone in pajamas.

Enjoy.

From Blog videos

Our Two are Four!

...so, yeah, some time has passed since last Easter. So much time, in fact, that our three-and-a-half year old children went and turned FOUR!

(October 31, 2011. As you can see they take being FOUR years old very seriously.)

The time goes so fast, doesn't it? Although I can't help feeling a little sad to see the passing of the babyhood, and toddler-hood, it's also incredibly exciting to watch these people take shape before our eyes. They amaze, exhaust, entertain, inspire, stretch, and humble us. Every. Single. Day. It's a full, full life we share with these two.

We spent the past week celebrating with friends and family. Grammy and Aunt Lisa visited us the week before their birthday; Uncle Jeff, Aunt Janice, Ellie and Lucy came to celebrate with us the weekend of their birthday. festivities On Saturday, we had a joint birthday party (for the third year running) with our dear friends, the Malones, whose daughter, Eva, shares a Halloween Birthday with Jess and Evie. It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful--which was good since we had the birthday party out of doors at a local park. The party was a costume birthday brunch with lots of friends; it culminated with a walk over to the zoo for "Boo-at-the-Zoo" (a Halloween event at the zoo). Needless to say, Jess and Evelyn enjoyed all of this immensely.










There was so much fun stretched out over such a long period, that it took the kids a while to realize that, at last, the celebrations had come to an end. Upon realizing that their birthday was now over, Jesse said: "But we still get to be four, right mom?"