Well, we survived week 2 as new puppy owners(and the puppy survived too!). She gained a whole pound, we don't know how. She does not eat much, but she is growing into puppyhood, complete with bouncing and barking and some running before she passes out. She is sleeping in her crate at night with limited crying now. Scott is still crying though cause he wants to sleep with the puppy in his bed! Mostly it is too difficult to peel the puppy and Tom off the couch at night!
What a surprise to find a box on our doorstep from my wonderful friend Laura in Detroit and her family. They sent each of us a little Valentine gift, including a welcome gift to the puppy. Cookie especially loves chewing on the little fire hydrant. Thank you so much-that was so sweet of all of you! The kids loved their special treats too. And by the way Laura, we want to thank you for the quesadilla maker! Even Tom has found himself using it on a regular basis even though he poo pooed it as an excessive kitchen appliance. My favorite part is that the kids can make their own quesadillas, and Allison even made a whole bunch of pizza quesadillas for our girl scout meeting one night. Thanks again!
Even though this was a short week with President's day off, it sure seemed long. The kids have been bombarded with tests and homework assignments this week since we are coming down to the end of the semester. Just one more week.
And as if we didn't have enough work to do, Allison decided to sign up for training as a peer minister for confirmation candidates at our church. We had to fill out an application this weekend, complete with essay questions. If she is chosen(they only take 48 students and apparently it is a very popular program with the high school students at our church)then she has lots of training programs to attend before the Fall. Also she is responsible for writing a presentation for the retreat that she would be assisting with. But it looks good on the resume right?
We had so many activities planned this weekend, we could not get them all in(amazing right?). I originally planned on attending the Girl Scout's International Thinking Day on Saturday. Allison and I would have been performing with the choir on stage, but then Allison was asked to work at our neighbor's house during a jewelry party/sale. She was supposed to spend the entire afternoon setting up snacks and serving the guests as well as assisting with the orders. Instead of all those activities, Allison was asked to compete for her Advanced green belt in karate. She ended up completing 3 1/2hrs of testing that day and we are happy to announce that she is now an advanced green belt. There are just brown and black belts left. Hope she can stick it out since it will probably take a few years to finish. We decided to forgo all those other activities since the next test date wasn't until Oct. To celebrate, we went out to dinner with our friends from MSU Matt and Diana Wagner and their two boys. We haven't had time to visit since Labor Day weekend. We all went out to a Japanese steak house-this was the kids first time. They loved the chef's amazing cooking show at our table. I was not too happy when he pretended to squirt sauce in my face! The kids especially loved when the chef tossed them shrimp to catch in their mouths!
And we would have been assisting the Girl Scouts on Friday nite with the local International Thinking Day program, but Allison had an extended piano lesson. Her instructor cut her short last week since she was running late. So she spent over an hour with Allison. Allison is trying to learn to play the theme from Twilight(she is hooked bad and is on the last book).
Instead, I sent a few of my girls from my troop over to help out on Friday nite.
And I am still trying to schedule the kids for summer camp. I just signed Allison up for a GS camping trip in July to Assateague island in VA. Anyone remember the book Misty of Chincateague? In VA, the Spaniards came over with horses on their sailing ships and left horses on the beaches, or if ships crashed off shore, the horses swam to the beach. So the wild horses still live there on the coast and on the island of Assateague. Each summer, the local fire dept swims the horses across the channel to the town of Chincateague to thin out the herd and sell the ponies. Allison will be camping on the island and I believe will be there the week they swim the horses over to the mainland-I want to go! There is a Nat Park on the island and I have heard many people really enjoyed their tenting experience. Allison has been busy saving her babysitting money to help cover the cost of the trip. She would also like to spend some time visiting with Gma and Gpa Bozyk at the lake house this summer, probably in August. I am hoping we can get up there for a visit at the end of July during the Venetian festival in Charlevoix. It is hard to believe we have to schedule summer so far in advance. We haven't even made it to Spring break!
Tom may be headed to Salt Lake City this coming week. Mark Seitz is off to Switzerland. Have a good trip Mark and say hello to Alex in Germany for us. And then off to Florida when you return! Good luck with the marathon and say Hi to Mom and Dad Seitz. We are talking about heading down there for our spring break in April as well.
The kids have a shortened week again since it is report card marking week. Hope you all have a great week! Happy 13th Birthday Caroline and Clayton Bozyk! Hope you had a fun birthday celebration! Sounded like quite the house party you all had planned.
Kathleen

Dear Family and Friends-Hope everyone had a chance to spend some special time with their special someone this past Valentine's Day! Tom and I had a wonderful evening out-first to the Broadway show "Grease"-Tom got me tickets for Christmas. And afterwards a wonderful Valentine dinner at an irish restaurant next to the theatre, complete with a bottle of champagne! We even had the added bonus of having Allison stay with Scott(as well as our fearless watch puppy)! Allison earned her new "Twilight" tshirt that night in exchange for Scottsitting.
Yes we survived (and so did the puppy) our first week as new dog parents and dog kids. Cookie cried at night in her crate, but loved sleeping on a blanket in the basement with the kids during their "sleepover". She spends the day in her crate and is happy to get out and play a bit before falling asleep on a coat or hat that someone left on the floor. She gained a whole pound this week-she is now 9weeks old and weighs 3lbs. We can't go anywhere with her without her and us getting lots of attention. We can barely get out of the house and all the "dog" people in our neighborhood come to say hello. She had her first vet visit and we are happy to know she is a very healthy puppy. She had two more vaccinations, and more to come. She really is a cutey-we even used her picture as a Valentine card for Scott's class. I made up his cards and put candy kisses on each one. Scott had a party in school on Friday afternoon. Allison had 4 tests! Ugh!
I also spent my day off last week taking my girl scouts to Legislative Day in our capital, Annapolis. I signed up my whole troop-7 girls and my coleader and ended up with myself and 3 girls. I lost most of my girls to bronchitis, the flu, strep throat and even one to a burst appendix! Not fun! We managed to find the right buildings though and started our day at 730 am. We visited with Legilslators-Senators and Reps and passed out GS cookies. Our council is trying to raise money to build a large main activity center for all Maryland girl scouts to have a place to come together and work on projects, take classes and participate in nature programs. Most programs now are held in churches, schools or at the local camps. It would be nice to have a centeral meeting place. We also had a tour of the state house-we learned that Annapolis was the capital of the US for awhile after the Revolutionary War, and Gen Washington turned in his sword right there giving up his command. The patriots wanted to crown him king, but he turned down the offer stating that is what they were fighting against. They have a plaque on the floor where he stood to surrender his leadership as well as his sword and the document stating he was withdrawing his position. Afterwards, the girls and I enjoyed a visit at the NASA exhibit celebrating Goddard space Center's 50th anniversary. They had lots of free stuff and interesting exhibits about robotics and satellites and the Hubble telescope. Not to mention great food-the jars and jars of free candy were enough to win me over! It was an exciting day but very long and all of us were tired. Scott had to go in early and stay late at school since Tom was out of town. He had a trip to Boston and when he returned he was off to Michigan visiting Ann Arbor(UofM)of all places! We did not get much sleep the night before since we had a big rain storm with hurricane winds the day after. The power kept going on and off, setting off all sorts of lights and noisy appliances that kept us awake. We even had some damage to our siding.
Tom had hoped our Homeowner's insurance would cover the repair since we had it fixed 8yrs ago during a hail storm. Traveler's reports they cannot help unless we locate the claim number for them. They have no records of who they hired to complete ther work, or exactly what was done and what was covered. Unless we locate the claim number(unbelievable). so I will dig through the records-although Tom usually throws everything away(and I try to keep it all). We'd like to get the siding fixed and replace our old rotting wood trim with vinyl soffits. But we would like someone else to do the work and pay for the damaged siding too!Wish us luck!
On Sunday we visited with some old neighbors that currently live north of Baltimore. They invited us up for dinner and to meet our new puppy. We had a great visit and wonderful dinner and it looks as if they may be moving back to our area during the year. We would love for them to be closer! They would love to hire Allison to babysit their two boys!
On Friday night, after Allison's piano, and picking her up from volunteering to assist the brownies with face painting(glad I wasn't there), I ducked out to go to a girl's jewelry party at a friend's house around the corner. It was fun meeting some new women neighbors and catching up with the old ones. Tom had Scott for karate and a laser tag birthday party. They had a great time with the new laser guns and obstacle course. I also finally got Scott to the barber since he was looking as shaggy as our new puppy. I also went shoe shopping, but all the winter shoes are being cleared out for spring/summer line and most of the shoes in my size were already sold out. Figures. Scott keeps wearing through his shoes but I didn't feel like paying $20-30 bucks for play shoes. I'll keep looking I guess.
This week I also signed Allison and Scott up for summer Kids on Campus classes. Each summer they have taken classes at our local Jr college and they love it. Allison is taking a transition to High School class, along with a photoshop class and art class. Scott will have a week of robotics and engineering and a science class-ooey, gooey and stinky too!
I am sitting at home today, Presiden'ts day, since I changed my day off to stay with the kids. It turns out though Tom got the same day off, so he is spending his time building on to our fence in the backyard to keep Cookie enclosed. He is busy working on the gate portion. It looks really nice. We used to have the backyard enclosed before our remodel, but left it opened with the new garage. I think I like having it back again. We figure we can always put in a pet door to the garage through our back access door so she can come and go as she pleases.
Well, I am going to go make another appt for the puppy at the vets-she is due for more shots in a month. And I still have a whole week to go with lots more activities! Allison is testing this coming weekend for advanced green belt, and I just got a call from our GS Service Leader asking for help with Thinking Day this Friday-an International celebration.
Never a dull moment-but it is nice to snuggle with the puppy! Kathleen

I am still waiting for the recession. You may recall last week that we bought a new car(or so we thought). Monday night we found out that the car we purchased on Sunday was sold to someone else on Sunday. We never even heard from the dealership until Monday night at 930pm that our car was no longer available. And the dealer waited a day or so to get back with us on updated deals and to ask if we were still interested in buying another car. Guess the auto industry is doing better than we thought!
Then we decided to buy a puppy. Tom and Scott have been searching the pounds for months for the perfect puppy. Unfortunately, Tom has such bad allergies, he really couldn't find anything that fit his needs(for breathing!). Guess he wasn't too interested in a pit bull for the family either since that seems to be the most popular pound puppy these days. So after seeing a vet highlighting a hypoallergenic type dog on the news, I decided to investigate further. The adorable muppet creature turned out to be a Cavachon(never had heard of it). But these days they are mating everything with poodles and other small dogs, and it all seems to be for people with bad dog allergies. After a bit of investigating, I finally convinced Tom that this was the dog for our family. And so on Friday, Tom and I headed to PA and visited several mennonite kennels and farms hunting for the right puppy. We found a cutie little girl that the kids named Cookie(I thought Latte would work!).
So far it is just like when we brought baby Allison and Scott home from the hospital-noone gets any sleep since the new "baby" cries all night; she needs fed, watered and toileted every 2-3hrs and she sleeps, sleeps, sleeps-but just during the day-on top of any human. And don't put her down cause she'll cry if you ignore her(not really). She is in love with all of us and the feeling is mutual. But our cat Pika is not too convinced this is a good addition to the family!
Tom was home this week but will be off traveling next week to Boston and Detroit. He had to have emergency dental work for a cracked tooth last week-almost 3hrs in the dental chair. I never even knew a dentist office would stay open past 5pm.
Tom and Scott did a fabulous presentation at Scott's cub scout meeting on Monday. We were studying "Flight" so scott and Tom talked about hot air balloons. scott presented his research that he did during the Science fair in the spring. Then Tom demonstrated a hot air balloon in the garage with a propane camping stove and a big plastic trash bag. The boys loved seeing the balloon float up into the garage rafters.
On Saturday, the two of them participated in the cub Scout Klondike Derby-lots of outdoor activities in the park with an Alaskan theme. In the evening, we all celebrated the boys advancement to Wolf Cubs at the Blue and Gold cub Scout banquet. My Girl Scouts helped by serving the dinner. And each year there is a cake baking contest with different themes focusing on different Scout activities. Scott has won the last two years and he won again this year for best Camping theme. Alaska was also our banquet theme so Scott made an igloo cake with a dog sled and won for Camping in Alaska. The cakes are always a real fun treat(also tasty) but it is amazing to see how creative everyone is. There was a very good husky dog cake, and a large puffin-boo to the people who added penguins. No penguins in Alaska. My favorite was a large bust of Sarah Palin-complete with eyeglasses. It won for funniest. And the kids loved trying the sugar cube igloo since they never tasted one before(they don't get out much!). I then ended up with a housefull of kids and parents visiting the new puppy. Allison is already becoming a strong member of our neighborhood's dog club. Our yard is becoming very popular.
Our weather was spring like this weekend so everyone was out. We had a busy day today since Allison had to altar serve at the 9am mass, and the kids went to the bowling event for our school in the afternoon. I was lucky enough to chaperone a lane of 6 boys(thank goodness 2 did not show up!).
Allison spent the weekend puppy sitting, but also enjoyed going to the Middle School dance on Friday night while we had drinks with our neighbors and talked puppy care.
so we will let you know if I survive the week. Now I have an extra child and Tom is off traveling.
Have a great trip to England Mark! Dan we enjoyed the video clip. I will have to get Tom and Allison to add a video to my blog(but it was actually me who picked out the twins videocameras
-Tom was just the inspiration with Allison's suggestion). I also bought one for Nicholas.
Wish us all luck this week!
Kathleen

Scotty's Birthday Celebration

(Sorry, sending this out late since my technical support AKA Tom was out of town and I was not able to download a new photo).
Another busy week. Just watching the Super Bowl game. I Miss the Ravens playing. We still have lots of Pittsburgh fans here in Baltimore though. Most of our time was spent at home last week with snow and ice. Tom was off to work for the week in Charlottesville VA. The kids had their first snow days of the year, but it was mostly ice that kept us off the roads. Not as bad as Kentucky or Alabama. At least we didn't lose our power. The kids just loved not going to school and sledding on the ice. I enjoyed a few days off work to clean out closets and study with the kids. Not enough time off though; I am sure I will still have plenty to do for spring cleaning. Good start though. And it warmed up enough this Sunday so I could finish cleaning my dining room windows and front storm door on the outside.
I also signed up to make a jello salad for Teacher's Appreciation Week and ended up making a taco salad for a funeral. All of the programs for Catholic School Week were cancelled last week due to a tragedy at the school. One of our 4th graders, a 10 yr old girl was killed in a car accident on her way to school Monday morning. It certainly left a great sadness on all the families and kids this week.
We cancelled many activities at school last week, including GS meetings on Friday. I relocated my girls to my house for our meeting and we made 150 thank you cards to attach to our 150 boxes of donated cookies for the US military. Thanks to anyone who purchased donated cookies by the way! We hope to travel to the BWI airport next month to hand deliver our cookies to returning US troops. We were able to experience this activity last year and it was very moving to have the chance to personally thank our soldiers for all they do and their sacrifices. As well as give a little something back to them as a token of our gratitude. You'd be surprised how much they all love our cookies! And during our last visit, my girls were asked to join the welcoming committee to lead us all in the pledge of the allegiance. What a great experience for the kids too!
I also had to take my girls to a late night meeting to discuss the details on our upcoming Up All Night at the Mall GS activity. When we were younger, we attended the Columbia Mall Sleep In where we stayed up all night at our local mall completing crafts and badges and just having a great time. Now that the girls are older, it is their turn to run the activities. Last year we were in charge of making pom pom caterpillars-not very stimulating. This year the girls will be assisting with running a badge station-a little more challenging. They also get a chance to earn a few patches of their own(and eat chinese food at 2am). What could be better.
Saturday we finally celebrated Scott's birthday with his school friends. We tried to schedule a party in Nov and Dec, but with his birthday falling on Thanksgiving Day, it didn't leave much time for fitting in a party. The one day in Dec that was free and we had tickets to the BSO Christmas symphony. So Jan it was and it worked pretty well. I think more kids were available to attend. Scott wanted a gymnastics party. He wanted to spend his time jumping and flipping(and he did!). The kids all had a great time and agreed that 1hr was not enough time! As a matter of fact, Scott wants to try his hand at gymnastics and will be taking a class in February.
Sunday we all gathered for the 9am Scout Sunday mass, both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. It's fun to see all the kids together in uniform. Next week is Scott's Blue and Gold banquet and cake making contest, as well as the Klondike Derby. Sunday was also a nice day to shop for a new car. I have been agonizing over a replacement for my minivan. Ford and GM decided to stop making minivans(big mistake) but they didn't bother to check with me. Anyhow, I guess I decided on the GMC Acadia-part SUV/part station wagon. It claims to have about as much carrying capacity as my Buick Terrazza minivan. But my van has reached the 85000 mile mark and I am afraid important stuff will start falling apart. And my extended warranty runs out at 90000. I already had it in to the dealership for about 2 1/2wks trying to fix the heating system, so I can't afford any more breakdowns. Looks like my new vehicle will be delivered to the dealer on Monday. Then we will just have to sell my minivan. I don't think I am quite ready to give up my minivan, but the car companies have not left me with any other choice(except to go foreign which is pretty taboo coming from Detroit). I will let you know how I like the new vehicle.
We were out of the dealership in time to attend dinner at our neighbors while we enjoyed the Super Bowl. Looks like lots of PA fans will be happy this week.