Happy Birthday Dad Seitz! Dad Seitz enjoyed his BDay this past Sunday with dinner at Sharkeys on the pier in Venice, FL. We hope you are enjoying your extended XM radio from the Seitz kids. I know I love mine, and I am hoping to get a new car sometime with free two years worth of XM radio service. Susan and John were just down there visiting and headed back to Indiana last week. Hope you got your package Susan.
We helped Matt Wagner celebrate his Bday this weekend with dinner at our house. Tom cooked. Matt unfortunately celebrated getting older by discovering he has diabetes. He does not need insulin injections at this point, he is managed through medication. We all took turns checking our blood sugars after eating chocolate birthday cake. Too much excitement! I needed some rest time after going into work on Saturday. I missed a day last week since Scott caught a big cold and stayed home for a few days. I made up my time on Saturday-one nice thing about my kind of work. I also had to keep up my weekend schedule however which included running home to take Allison to karate in the middle of the day, and then running her and the Girl Scouts over to our local hospital to take a CPR for Teens class. Fortunately I was able to return to work and another mom picked up the girls when they were done. I was hoping the girls could take a CPR class towards their childcare badge, and it was a nice benefit for Allison since she is slowly building a babysitting service. One of my patients took her name for her daughter and son in law. Two years ago I had the girl scouts take a babysitting course, so this was Part II of the training. While I was running around on Saturday, Tom was able to get Scott to karate and then to an Easter egg hunt in the pool at the YMCA. Scott had a great time and got a few fun gifts. He loved chasing floating eggs in the pool. He stayed home both Thursday and Friday, so he missed his gymnastics again. But since he was home it gave us time to get a paper written. He had to write a report for Spanish class on a custom in a spanish speaking country. Tom recommended Day of the Dead-I found Scott some great books at the library and we spent a day reading all about it and writing the report. He did a good job. The kids spent the entire last week doing standardized testing, so fortunately they did not have a lot of homework. But their little brains were fried at the end of the day.
On Friday I had to spend some time preparing for my Girl Scout meeting. I picked up the girls after school and brought them home to work on their Silver Award and prepare for a Brownie badge that they are putting on this coming Friday at school for our 2nd graders. This is all extra points for our Silver Award which we should receive in May. After the meeting I had to run the girls up to school for a Middle School Madness party with the church youth group. They spent the night playing air hockey and sumo wrestling in fat suits, dancing and playing games, and of course eating snacks. But there was a catch-they had to participate in the Stations of the Course first. Allison said she was worn out from all the kneeling and sitting and walking around the church! At least they didn't have to do them outside in the dark! She sure was tired that night. Me too-I was so grateful another mom brought her home since I fell asleep on the couch before eleven! At least I had myself a fish dinner from church before I came home!
On Sunday we had another puppy training class-looks like we are doing pretty well with sit and lie down. At least the potty training seems to be going well-no accidents over the past few weeks! Sunday evening, Tom and Allison went off to enjoy a GS event together-Daddy Daughter dance and rollerblading event. Tom actually enjoyed the event. He went with another GS and her Dad, so they knew someone at the event. and while he was off with Allison, I took Scott and the Dad's son to see Monsters vs Aliens movie in 3D IMAX. We all enjoyed the movie-especially in 3D.
I think the long week did me in. Tom was out of town in Salt Lake City working last week so I was on my own with the kids. Tom even missed his own Northrop award dinner. Northrop had a big dinner at the Westin hotel for their employees that displayed exceptional work projects this past year. They actually had to host a dinner every night for 4 nights since there were so many groups being honored. Tom asked me to go in his place, so after picking up the kids and dropping them off at home with dinner, I changed my clothes and ran off to arrive just as they were serving the salads. I sat at Tom's boss's table and they let me know that not one person in Tom's group was able to make it to the dinner that night. They asked if I wouldn't mind standing up in their places. So there I was representing the entire group with lots of photo opps while emailing Tom in Salt Lake. I did have a very nice dinner and enjoyed talking to all the ladies and picking up Tom's award. The Northrop employess just couldn't believe I was brave enough to do that. They must not know me very well! No big deal for me. And on the next day at work I had to do an impromptu advertisement for our Rehab Dept on our inhouse television station during our Health Fair. I think I had more than enough attention last week.
And we were all still pretty pooped out with our trip to Busch Gardens on Sunday.
Another Busy week this week! At least the flowers are all blooming and Spring has arrived(but the allergy sufferers in the family are not too happy)-we even had our first Thunder Storm this weekend. I hear they had snow in Detroit. Tom sure had snow in Salt Lake. We are having cherry blossoms!
Kathleen and family

Happy Spring! Lots of changes in the air, including several managerial layoffs at my Retirement community. My Rehab manager was let go after 10yrs at my facility. We are all still in a bit of shock. Fortunately our field is short on help, so she will probably not have as much trouble finding something else, but I don't think she had planned on looking for a new position any time soon. Neither did the managers in Security or Housekeeping, or the few other managers let go. Guess everyone is trying to cut corners.
Although that did not appear to be the case when I went out shopping for Tom's birthday and helping out the Easter Bunny with a few items this weekend. The mall and stores were packed on Friday. Guess if you're out of work, you have lots more time to shop! Just no money! Maybe credit then. I was happy to find the items I was looking for, and I am also trying to start some packing and shopping for our trip to Florida at Easter(just a few weeks away). Hard to believe we just finished with St Patty's Day. The kids were so excited to wear St Patrick's Day clothes. Scott had a shirt on that said "Don't pinch me". Of course, everyone wanted to pinch him!
I was also busy on Friday baking brownies for the Fish Fryday dinner that night. Allison and I served dinner too as volunteers. It was not as crazy busy as it has been in the past. And as soon as we finished up, it was time to take Allison to piano. She also had a sleepover with her girlfriend who shares her love for the Twilight series. The DVD came out at midnite, so I took the girls to a preview party at Borders Bookstore and at midnite they began to sell the movie. We didn't have any luck winning any of the raffle gifts, but the girls loved buying themselves Twilight paraphanalia at the bookstore including Sweethearts with Twilight sayings, and buying the movie on discount. Afterwards, the girls stayed up late watching the movie and eating popcorn. Good thing they could sleep in the next morning(before Allison headed off to karate). She learned how to drop people in karate by sweeping their feet-she had lots of fun!
Scott is having fun in his karate class too, as well as his gymnastics class. He really likes the rings. He had two classes this week to make up for being sick last week. At least he is feeling well again. It's a good thing too since we didn't give the kids much time off this weekend.
Northrop sponsored a night at the Baltimore Science Museum on Saturday. We had a fun time playing with all the hands on equipment and watching an IMAX movie on Beavers(nature's engineers of course!).
We had to get to bed early Saturday night since we headed off to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg on Sunday. They had a grand opening for season pass members. Tom and I decided to re up our 2yr passes, since I will be heading down to Williamsburg in June with the girl scouts and will probably stop in for a day at Busch Gardens. We also had the chance to see Jack Hanna in person and get his autograph. He is a very laid back kind of guy, very personable and very funny. He had great animal stories to tell, and funny stories about some of the shows he has been on like the David Letterman show, and Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader. He believes the kids are not really 5th graders, just short people from Yale. He begged us not to watch his episode(said he did not do very well). I was just impressed that he stood in line with us while we waited to get in his show and passed out his autographs. Smart guy. He has made a visit or two to Busch Gardens each year since they are big into Animal Conservation, but this was going to be his only visit this year. Meanwhile, Scott and Tom were busy riding all the roller coasters. F.E.A.R.-Forget Everything and Ride! Allison and I saw that on a tshirt at Busch Gardens, but Allison does not agree. She is not a daredevil like her brother. We did not get home until around 11pm, so we had our neighbors puppy sit in the evening. They enjoy bringing cookie over to keep their beagle company.
Speaking of puppy sitting, we solved our problem for our Florida trip. Turns out Tom was over near our friends from MSU, Matt and Di's house checking out a kennel and he stopped in to introduce them to Cookie. We have been having trouble finding a kennel that would take Cookie since she is so young she hasn't had her Rabies shot. Anyway, turns out that Matt and Di's dog, Elvis(a Wisla-looks like a hound dog) had just died that weekend. We knew he was sick with cancer, but he hung on for a month after he was diagnosed. But since Diana was feeling especially sad having lost her dog, she was very happy about the idea of puppy sitting. So now we don't have to worry about Cookie catching strange dog diseases since she hasn't had all her shots, and she won't get trampled by big dogs either! And maybe she will learn to chase chipmunks like Elvis did!
We hear Susan and John are visiting Mom and Dad Seitz in Florida this week. Hope they are all enjoying the weather and beaches. We can't wait to hit the beaches ourselves! We'll probably stop into Busch Gardens Tamp and Sea World, although Tom is very sad to hear they have discontinued the Hospitality Centers! Oh No, there goes an era of free beer and beer tasting school. The kids already miss the all you can drink soda and the Ghiradelli chocolates. How sad. Tom is not sure he will be able to handle Shamu without a free beer in him. How sad. I would think the new Busch brewery owners would love the extra business that seems to occur when you try their free beer. Guess Europeans don't believe in free samples.
Tom did win himself an award from Northrop for all his hard work in Salt Lake City last year. He is being honored at a Northrop dinner this Tuesday, however, Tom scheduled himself for a work trip to Salt Lake City this week! So he is going to miss his own award dinner. I will probably try to go for him if he tells me where and when the dinner is tomorrow. And if I can get the kids picked up from school and fed before I go! Guess I will be dining with one of Tom's bosses. Let you know how this week turns out! At least we're both still working! Kathleen and Family

Happy St Patrick's Day! Allison and I started celebrating early as we marched in a St Patty's parade with the GS choir on Saturday morning. We were busy singing Tura Lura Lura and the Rattlin' Bog. This year they put us behind a car advertising a Relay for Life Marathon and everyone was busy passing out balloons and candy(which is a little distracting for our youngest choir members). But better than last year when we were behind a military group that kept shooting off guns, scaring our girls to death! While we were busy marching and singing, Tom and Scott were busy with the cub scouts racing his Pinewood derby masterpiece, the Wiimobile. Scott and Tom were going for cool car award this year, with a lifelike looking Wii remote control car, including lights that worked with a push of a button. However, the car was just fast enough to take 3rd place-so now Scott has a collection of trophies from 1st, 2nd and-3rd place which he won starting in 1st grade(1st place) second grade(2nd place) and 3rd grade(3rd place). He already has his design for next year and says he wants to go for speed again(he has his eye on the grand champion trophy!) Allison and I made it back from our parade in time to watch Scott's car race in the finals. Usually Allison asks for her own car for the sibling races, but Tom was a little too busy helping our neighbor with his son's car this time. She'll live-just no new patch for her vest this year. She was not even asked to help at the snack shop(which she loves). Today, we have choir practice in the afternoon-getting ready for our spring performances. They are bribing us with ice cream today. I had Scott home with me on Friday-he had a bit of a stomach ache-looks like he is over it now. He was pretty wiped out though on this weekend. And of course I did not get as much done as I needed to do. I did manage to get my eyes tested and bought my first pair of glasses! Poop! I guess I am getting old. I blame the computer on my blurry vision-I feel like I spend more time at work typing on the laptop now then I do treating my patients(per work guidelines!). Although statistically, I do not spend enough time typing(per work guidelines). Work is always concerned about our productivity(how much time we spend treating patients in a day). I had the highest productivity in our rehab dept in January-I will have to see how Feb and March turn out. I have been pretty busy and putting in a few long days, but I did take time out this week to join a few GS choir members that came to Charlestown(my retirement community where I work) and put on a GS Birthday celebration for retired GS leaders. We had about 15 ladies attend, complete with birthday cake(and GS cookies) and historical photos and pins/uniforms and patches from the Baltimore area. Most of our ladies are from MD or DC or the New York area. I joined a few members of our choir to sing a few songs at the event, and we had plenty of photographers and videotapers on site to record our event. It was a very nice presentation.
The kids brought home wonderful report cards this week-their hard work paid off. But no letting up on the studying and tests. Allison actually did an excellent job on her Science Test this week even though her study time was limited due to our GS overnight at the mall on Saturday. We had some sleep to catch up on this past week. And we still had to go to puppy school last week-no class this week as our teacher was out running a marathon. No piano since our music teacher was performing in a musical and Scott did not make any of his gymanstics or karate classes since he did not feel well. Gave me more time to stay home and sign up for more activities coming up in the following months. I did manage to get pup pup to another vet visit for more vaccinations. And we have been busy looking for a place to board her while we are in Florida this Easter visiting with Mom and Dad Seitz. I am having a bit of a problem since she is so young and has not yet had all her vaccinations. Good luck to us finding a place. I do have someone watching the house along with the cat and gerbils, but they are pretty self sufficient. And most of our neighbors will be gone at Easter as well. This is a whole new experience for us. Puppy needs a bit more attention than the cat. I definitely decided we have a Garfield/Odie relationship going on here though. We are also getting a little better with housetraining(not as many accidents!) And Cookie seems to enjoy her new backyard(now that it is fenced in again thanks to Tom).
Spring is definitely in the air-we have had rain and somewhat warmer temps that coaxed my flowers up out of the ground. Sadly, looks like the bunnies are enjoying them the most-just when the crocuses opened, the flowers lives were cut short by little nibblers. Same with my tulips. There is hope for the daffodils. I did spray on some animal- be- gone, but of course it rained the next day. I think these critters would eat rat poison and not even flinch!

Last Monday we were shoveling almost a foot of snow, today the kids were digging out their shorts from the back of the closet. It warmed up to about 70 degrees this weekend-it feels like Florida! I saw the first yellow crocuses blooming next to the shopping mall. Mine are not far behind. Speaking of shopping malls, Allison and I just spent all of Saturday night out with the girl scouts and about 2000 little Jr Scouts working on badges and arts and crafts projects. We were up all night at the Columbia Mall Sleep In where we don't actually sleep. My girls helped put on an arts badge station and earned a few patches themselves-I want to be a Rock Star, and the Harvest for the Hungry patch-they collected food this weekend and donated to the Maryland Food Bank. So did the cub scouts so Scott and I went and picked up donations Saturday morning from people's mailboxes where we left bags last week. I especially enjoyed that it was time to spring ahead cause we only had to work a 5hr night, unlike our 6hr night last year. And the girls still enjoy eating Chinese food at 2am! Unfortunately, I was not happy that most of the parents forgot about daylight savings time (even though I emailed them and reminded them) and they were 45 mins late picking up their girls. I had to call them all at 6am and wake them up for pick up. I was home by 545(it was very dark out, but very warm that morning). No coats for a change! So Allison and I crashed in the basement while Scott and his sleepover buddy ran around the house keeping us from getting a completely restful sleep. Guess we are hitting the hay early tonite! We woke up when it was time for Cookie's puppy class. We are working on sit and stay, come, drop it (a very important command) and leave it! The class is wearing out little girl out. Us too! Tom just wants to know when she is going to stop pooping and peeing in the house (we still have about one accident a day). I keep telling him not bad for a 12wk old. She is still real cute (I could have sold a few of her today at the pet store). And Pika our cat still keeps her distance and is happy the dog goes out of the house.
Both kids tried out their new higher level green belt classes-Scotty's class got to spar, and Allison's class makes a weird breathing sound that is something like the sound of an asthma attack. Supposed to help with concentration (right). Tom says Scott is pretty good at sparring (actual physical contact). Scott also enjoyed another week of bouncing and flipping in gymnastics-it is a crazy place-lots going on in the gym at once. And it makes it hard to watch the kids-they move around all over.

Just when we thought Spring was right around the corner we were blessed with the biggest snow since 2006. Tom has already been out warming up the snowblower-we haven't used it in over 2 years! He headed off to work while I stayed home with the kids. It was a good thing since Allison had a paper to rewrite and a Social Studies test to review. You wouldn't know it was the end of the semester. Both kids managed to do well and I think they were hoping for a bit of a break. Allison did squeeze in a sleepover on Saturday night at a girl friend's house. She would have liked to have seen the Jonas Bros movie concert, but with limited time on the weekends, I figured the live concert we went to last summer was good enough. She just had high hopes that the J Bros would have made a stop here in MD. Guess they were touring around the US this weekend making surprise stops at movie theatres. Tom made Allison calculate the odds. Instead, we celebrated the end of Semester 2 by skiing. The kids had a half day on Thursday, so I took off a few hours and the kids and I along with my GS coleader and her two kids headed up to PA. We were surprised to see the slopes pretty empty. It got busier as the evening came on with teenage snowboarders and families with itty bitty skiers. But overall we had the slopes to ourselves, and we even arrivd on free spaghetti dinner nite! All you can eat! I also had decided we should squeeze in one more ski trip this year since I had a buy one lift ticket, get one free coupon. And the kids loved it. This was Scott's 3rd time on skis and he can't get enough. He goes flying straight down the hills in about 60 secs and is back up the ski lift before I can get my poles ready. I was not too happy to see how excited he was watching the skiers and snowboarders jump and flip on the manmade course. I think we are in trouble. And he just started a gymnastics class. (We have to put all that energy to some good use!). He is a little concerned that he can't quite get the cartwheels.
I am also happy to report that both Allison and Scott are now green belts in karate. Allison tested last week(if you recall for 3 1/2 hrs) and moved up to advanced green belt, and Scott tested this past week and now he is a green belt at his karate school. Way to go guys!
Friday night I had a Girl Scout meeting with a guest speaker. We were preparing for our upcoming Up All Night at the Columbia Mall GS event. My troop of older girls and another troop will be putting on a badge station, Visual Arts for Jr Girl Scouts. The leader of the other troop came over Friday night to show the girls what we will be doing. The Girl Scouts take over the local mall all night long and complete fun activities from 11pm to 5am. The older girls and adults run the event. Last year we ran a craft table. My girls just enjoy eating chinese food at 2am. As an added bonus this year, we only have a 5hr event instead of 6 since it is Daylight savings time. Surprisingly the time usually goes by quickly anyway, so this year will feel especially rushed(more sleep for me). I am just amazed I can actually stay awake all night. Then we sleep all day Sunday. But we do have to get up for puppy school! Pup pup started Puppy Kindergarten last Sunday. The kids and I (and cookie of course) worked on name recognition and sit. Tom thought we would have all the puppy issues worked out in one hour. Right. Like don't chew and don't pee or poop on the floor. I told Tom those were his issues, not the dogs. Overall, the puppy(and us) are doing pretty well. You just have to learn to be smarter than a dog! However, we seem to have a very smart dog. She knows to run away when you want to take something from her. She is definitely our 3rd child. However, as Tom points out, it is not illegal to put her in the crate!
We also spent our weekend delivering food donation bags with the Cub Scouts. Scott's troop will be picking up food donations next week for our local food bank drive, Harvest for Hungry. My girl scouts participate at their Mall event. Scott also participated in a nice graduation ceremony at his karate school. And Tom spent most of the weekend working on the Pinewood Derby car. The cub scouts have model car races every year. Scott has won a trophy both years so far. This year he designed a Wii mobile, and Tom has been busy cutting it out and adding working lights! He also spent some time cutting out our neighbor's son's car for his derby this weekend. We are scheduled for March 14th. Allison and I usually miss most of the event every year since we usually sing in the St Patrick's Day parade with the girl scouts.
Speaking of holidays, the Easter season is upon us and we made sure to celebrate Fat Tuesday last week with one last tasty dessert. Ash Weds arrived this week and with it our promise to give up sweets. Scott on the other hand is trying a different approach. He is headed to the oasis instead of the desert by helping around the house. His steady job is putting away the clean dishes(he just couldn't give up the root beer like he first promised).
Tom thought he had to fly out to Salt Lake city but managed to stay home and work on a presentation instead. However, they may still want him to present in person in the next few weeks. He did make his dentist appt this week after all, and after waiting over an hour for the dentist they discovered the new crown he was supposed to get had a crack in it. Lovely. Guess he will be heading back.
So looks like we will have to wait a few more weeks for Spring. I thought we were so close-my daffodils, tulips and crocuses were popping up already.
No blog from Mark and Linda Seitz this week-seems they are both in Florida with Tom's parents. Mark headed down to run in a local marathon. Hope you both had a great visit, although I hear it was a bit chilly.
Susan and John will be heading down to Florida soon too. Hope you had a fun birthday last week Susan. We have an envelope to send out your way.
We have plans to head to Florida over our Spring Break too. Hope we all don't overwhelm Mom and Dad Seitz.
And I hope the twins, Caroline and Clayton Bozyk had a wonderful birthday party too. The twins turned 13 this year. I am working on a gift for the two of you as well.
See you all next week!