Capers & Blueberries

Dinner with the other Big Canoers Tuesday night went wonderfully. Good conversation and delicious food. I dunno who cooked what but I know that I ate it all.

 I never thought I'd see the day

 Yuula teaching Carol her rendition of numerals

thanks Ted, thanks Carol

(what's in the box?)

Meeting Miles Fallon

We knew that it'd be love at first sight for these two, but we never thought they'd skip right to the sweet bickering of a 20 year marriage. Miles John Murphy Fallon, you are one happy and handsome young man. Thank you for teaching Yuula to trampoline. Now I have to add that to her Christmas list.



They took turns in the baby stroller. Yuula was first.



Then Miles.



She is a strong girl.



Great to see Kheli of course, and Christian surprised us as well. Hope to get together tomorrow be fore we head back.

Mostly Angels, Some Demons

Dropped on the KA-dets this afternoon. Passing by so I thought it would be rude not to. Not many kids left that I know and a slightly adjusted staff. Great to see the old cats tho. Caught up slightly and grabbed some Five Guys. Yuula was a hit and drew a crowd til I chased them away. All the time is never enough so we got in and out in under three hours. Made plans for future encounters, like we always do, and bet on whether or not we'd see them thru. We know ourselves. But it was nice... for a that moment... it's enough.

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Ice Chips Only

Visited the survivor in the transplant ward today. He was in rare form. We enjoyed stories of him hallucinating on medication. Last night he thought he was in SVU and that my sleeping mother was either Detective Munch or Tutuola. And the night before he thought there were Nazis gathering in the hall conspiring to stick safety pins on his hospital gown all because he watched a obscure episode of Married With Children so he started to rip out the tube in his nose that was draining his stomach contents. Dehydration on dilaudid is strong and wild stuff. I have a photo of his scar but I think I'll spare the fainthearted who read here, or just scan the photos. It's pretty gnarly. He's proud of it. I'll show a photo of a grandma with a sleeping baby instead.



And then the scar.



The road to recovery is well under way.

Sunday Never Hesitates

I know the lyric is "Sunday always comes too late" but I found this one more appropriate. I was gonna throw some photos up from the weekend. Just let me.



We had the Hartsuikers over. The boys played Mario Kart and Laura & I finally found someone who was worse at it than us. Of course they're 2 and 5 but that shouldn't factor in. We ate English muffin pizzas and apple cider donuts. They actually worked well together. Let's do it again soon. Whatcha doing tomorrow?



We settled in for what would be an early evening of Dexter and probably some kale soup when I got a call from my father that my brother had been admitted to the hospital. He had woken up early in the morning with quite a high fever and was not feeling himself. With his history of medical issues it was quickly determined that the ER would be best and off they went. So after calling Melissa we decided our efforts would be best put to use visiting. We had heard he was not doing well and quite out of his mind. I didn't expect much of a visit, but instead got a the full-on 3rd degree about my new car and the status of our debilitated truck and witnessed his classic nurse abuse. So it was safe to say he was feeling better. From what I've heard today his recovery is coming right along, and should be moved out of the ICU soon. It was good to feel like our visit was welcome and we even got to spend a little time with the new nephew Dylan, who Yuula just finds hilarious.

A Dog Named Tygert Colm

Holed up at château Budd for the evening. Always a good time catching up and reminiscing, we lived a life parallel once upon a time. Fast forward five years and it's different but same. We've got a baby and he's got a dog named Ty. Another parallel. It is good like that. Budd's been decorating his Christmas tree. He got one jingle up.

Again we stayed up too late. I thought I'd get some rest on this holiday getaway. Maybe tomorrow night. Can't sleep in because we're off to Jasper in the morning, Canton in the afternoon, and then Woodstock before we get to the Krupps, our final destination and home base for the rest of the week. For now we're in a comfy bed, quite high off the ground and the girls are already snoring. Day one was a success. Yuula's starts to break down at 11 and a half hours. Good thing we only had to go 12. The ride home should be interesting.

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The Krupps Are In Pennsylvania

proof

Off To Ohio

We're leaving soon here. As soon as she's ready. Going out to Ohio to visit family. Laura's Grandma Sheldon has been ill and we wanted make sure and see her if things were to suddenly take a turn for the worse. Driving out to Genoa today, out to the Krupp grandparents in Carey, Ohio on Saturday, and then Brad & Erin's in Fort Wayne for Easter Sunday. Busy. We'll keep you abreast of any exciting details.

Have a happy Easter everybodies!

Breakfast In Brooklyn

It's funny. When we got to Amon's new (and much tidier) place on Carroll Street we realized that had been almost exactly two years since we last visited him in the city. January 31st, 2008. The way we left after that stay was "let's not wait two years to do this again!". We just made it.

Amon's new place is nice. And warm. Dead end street. We found parking right out front. No wandering the streets of Brooklyn this time. And we was hungry! All of us! Amon had cereal but no milk. He had glasses but no juice. A grocery run was imminent. And in this bitter cold, I had just started to feel my toes again. But our bellies had the facts and they voted yes.

Laura stayed in the warm apartment to do the cooking prep.

When we got back the two of them whipped into gear and threw everything from the fridge into some eggs and made some blueberry waffles on a dirty waffle iron, the only way to do it really. Little secret for making fresh blueberry waffles; use frozen blueberries. I went thru Amon's personal belongings to see if anything tickled my fancy.

0

Breakfast served...

And this made Laura...

Never Wore Shoes In 30 Years

Christmas morning. Is there anything more peaceful and serene? I woke up at 3am just to ensure that I took in as much of that unflappable calm as humanly possible. Once I was full I went upstairs to rustle the little woman out of bed. Surprisingly she was up and ready to go and I actually had to ask for a little 30 minute Christmas morning nap while the cats were the ones who became restless.

We headed downstairs around 8 am and made some waffles. We're in search of something that can eventually become our traditional Christmas breakfast. This may or may not be it.

We had hid catnip in the little stockings so that was an early morning freakout we weren't ready for. That stuff is like kitty crack.

We hit the presents hard after that, tearing into paper, ripping open packages, insisting explanations as to why certain items were bought. Amongst the havoc there were things we both expected to receive and surprises unleashed. I think we did really well this year and both came away pleased with the entire morning.

This was the first time in my 31 years of life that I have had to put shoes on and go somewhere on Christmas Day. I guess I've been spoiled, but this year we were invited to celebrate with the rest of our family at Tyler & Melissa's new house. I hope they were ready for us.

There was tons of food, of which I ate too much, but isn't that what the holidays are for?

We all sat around eating and reminiscing about Christmas' past and present, and just generally spending some quality time with family and Tyler's new mastiff puppy named Bronx, the largest & softest puppy ever.

It wasn't long before we were all spread across the couch and sleeping, also a tradition for us on Christmas.

After the secret Santa grab bag (in which I got a secret recipe book and waffle mix) Laura & I got going and came home with plans of finishing off this Christmas in style watching Holiday Inn (that we tried to watch the previous night but fell asleep before we could even hear Bing croon) and drink eggnog til it came out our pores. We made it thru more of the movie this time, I think Laura watched the whole thing, but I was out again. I think Laura may have carried me upstairs to bed because that's where I woke up this morning, slightly hungover and realizing that I couldn't possibly be further from doing it all again. Ahhh Christmas, you cruel mistress of yule.

The Estler's Visit

My parents got to come up today. They'd been to the house but not since we bought it. Only for the inspection, for curiosity. So round 8am they passed thru the water gap and we jumped up and tried to tidy what we could to relatively no affect. But with my parents it was just about relaxing. They came in and planted on the couch. We talked a bit over some cheese danish & coffee and then watched Batman Begins. They were unaware of this new set of caped crusader films. We had to clue them in.



We turned on a few sports games, Giants & Mets, and threw some steaks on the grill. Getting fancy. Added some cob corn on the grill and some Amish style potato salad and you got yourself a full belly.






A quick tour of the house and meeting the new kittens and they were ready to go. Long day and a long drive ahead and they had to leave time for ice cream at the After(glow). Good to see them. They helped us talk thru some future plans for the property and the house. We're excited for that 'someday'.

A Day Of Krupps

For our second day in Ohio we spent the morning at the home of the Krupp elders, lifelong farmers and pillars of their dedicatedly Catholic community. Fran & I slept in the basement where this rather out of place painting haunted us the whole night.


After a late breakfast they put us to work in the yard. I could definitely have been a farmer.







After that we headed towards Cheryl's hometown of Genoa to visit her brother Gaylord, his wife Chris & daughter Carrie. We spent an adequate amount of time in their pool, Theresa opened baby gifts, and we had a grande ol' time.







We headed back to Carey to stay at the grandparents house again and on the way spotted a glow off in a distant cornfield and Grandpa Krupp informed us that that was a tractor pull. Naturally we suited up and headed back out even tho it was nearly midnight. Unfortunately we were too early or late for the festivities but we did get our photo taken with the prize that went to the winner of the tractor pull...


... a tractor, naturally.