Sorry about my lack of posts as of late but blogging has been far from the forefront of my mind lately. I do want to say thank you to all that have sent cards and kind words this past week over the death of Dauber. It's really hard to believe that a dog can have so much of an impact on our lives. The simple things that we were constantly complaining about are now the things that we miss most. The 5am wake up every morning for feeding or the crazy all out sprint down the stairs on the way to the 5am feeding. Dauber was always under foot in the kitchen and it's really strange not stepping on him when in the kitchen preparing dinner. And what really got me the most was this weekend when Shawn was at his friend's and Katelyn with Lisa's parents. The very unfamiliar sound of silence....I really don't like it! I even miss the dog hair floating around the ceramic tiles. Lisa and I have never been in a house together for more than 6 months without Dauber around...it's really strange and pretty lonely.

Dauber did arrive home on Thursday and we ordered a really nice and non-obtrusive urn that doubles as a nice mantel clock. It's all still so very surreal.

Anyway, this post while not all that exciting to most, is a cheap therapy session for me. Sorry if I boring any of you with it.

On to other things.....

The family along with Lisa's Mom and Dad went to the annual Family Fun Fest at Shawn's school. The 2-1/2 hour event consists of a lot of bingo, about 25 raffles and a whole lot of screaming kids. We didn't win any of the bingo games or the raffles but Shawn seemed to enjoy himself. On Saturday, we spent about 4 hours cleaning the house. I gave the kitchen and laundry room the heavy cleaning it so desperately needed. Next weekend, I will tackle all the ceramic floors. Saturday night, Bev and Ted took Katelyn and Lisa, Shawn and I went to dinner with Jill, Todd and the kids to Abeulo's for Mexican food and then over their house to play some cards. We left Shawn there for his very first sleep over!

On Sunday, we sent grocery shopping and had Bev and Ted over for burgers on the grill since the weather was so nice. It will be the last of the burgers for me for awhile. I have put back on about 10 pounds of the 40 that I lost over the past 12 months and my clothes are starting to get a bit tight. Time for some cabbage soup and some serious calorie counting for me!

To think...$25 can buy this much happiness and unconditional love!

THE BEST FRIEND A FAMILY COULD EVER HAVE.
Dauber (1997-2008)

We're so lucky to have had you in our lives. Our hearts ache and we miss you terribly. Rest comfortably old friend. We Love You!

Not much happening the past couple of days except for all this snow that fell. It was a strange snow fall because most of it came from the northeast. When the winter weather comes from the northeast, we typically get twice as much snow and the way our house is situated, it doesn't seem to accumulate on our driveway as badly as it does went the weather comes from the northwest. So other than trying to keep warm, this week has been relatively quiet so far.

Monday I ended up going to Cabela's and bought my cargo carrier. The bags a bit heavier than I would like but what did I expect from a waterproof duffel that sits on top of your car as it rolls down the highway at 80 mph? For my purposes, the bags will work fine and they seem to be pretty airline baggage handler safe or in other words; pretty indestructible.

Last night, I decided to dabble in my latest hobby. If you haven't guessed the hobby by now, it's experimenting with Indian cooking. Last night we stopped by Kroger and picked up a few ingredients I was missing to make Rajma. Rajma is nothing more than kidney bean curry. The basic ingredients are dark kidney beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes and tons of spice. I would describe Rajma as almost a thick Indian chili with a kick. I served the Rajma over brown rice (not so Indian) to myself seeing that Lisa is a chick lipped lily livered scared e cat and refuses to try anything remotely Indian except for Naan and Roti. Speaking of Naan (bread), I may try my hand at baking my first batch tonight. For the record, I didn't like Rajma as much as I liked the Channa. The Rajma was good and I'll make it again but I like Channa a bit more.

And as most of you probably guessed, the Rajma goes perfectly with beer! My beer of choice lately is Hoegaarden, which is a Belgian white wheat beer. I really seem to like the Belgian beers of late. One of my favorites is Delirium Tremems which packs a punch at 9% alcohol by volume! You don't feel too much pain after throwing down a few beers with the pink elephant on the label.

As promised to Shawn, here is a picture of him with his latest Lego creation; a Raiders of the Lost Ark scene:

Another weekend that was just too short. Friday, Lisa took Katelyn for her one year appointment that went well as expected. If I remember correctly, she is 26 pounds and 31" long which puts her in the 95 percentile for her age. The only suggestion we got from the doctor was to begin weening her off all the milk in order to make her hungrier so she will start eating more food. Up to this point, we had taken Katelyn off formula and began giving her whole milk but she pretty much refuses all food except for stage two mac and cheese. Giving her table food is out of the question unless you enjoy getting upchucked on by a one year old. Friday night I went out with my friend Bo. We really didn't do anything real exciting but did catch up on the happenings in his life and more specifically his kids and his love life (not all that exciting). We basically just hung out at one of the local restaurant bars called the Brew House. I guess the brew house is now closed as of Sunday so I was one of the last to hang out there! We did attempt to hit one of the Mexican restaurants too for a Margarita but we ended up leaving as soon as we walked into the place because his ex-girlfriend was there.

Saturday, Lisa and I dropped the kids off at her parent's house and did a little shopping and got a bite to eat at Doc Watson's. We have been to Doc Watson's several times and the food as always been good but wow, this time it was terrible. We had chicken nacho's (again, we had these on two other occassions) and something tasted like a chemical or what I would think that nail polish remover would taste like. We sent the nachos back and the manager was pretty non-nonchalant about the whole thing. I decided to try a small white pita-pizza. Again, the food taste like chemical and I finally narrowed down the issue to the tomatoes. When I informed the waitress that the taste was coming from the tomaotes, I didn't even get a response. Lisa's salad (without tomatoes) was fine.

Later Saturday night, Lisa and I went out with Jill and Todd. We ended up trying a newer Japanese restaurant called Nagoya. Unfortunately, the restaurant wouldn't take reservations for the hibachi unless you had at least six in your party and the wait without a reservation to sit at the hibachi was 2 hours. We opted to sit at a regular table. I had a traditional tuna teriyaki dinner and Lisa had the chicken teriyaki. My tuna was a bit overdone but Lisa's was very good. We even had not one but two of their tasty fish bowl drinks that was loaded with Vodka, Rum some other libations and fruit juice. For the record, the second drink was Lisa's idea. We then stopped by Bar Louie's for a drink before heading to see The Bucket List.

The Bucket List was cute but I don't think that it lived up to the hype. I would suggest seeing it but wait till it comes to video or pay per view.

Sunday, it was off to shopping and eating again. I know it seems like all we do is go out to eat but have you been to Toledo lately? We ran a few errands looking for birthday gifts for Shawn, went to Lowe's and to the grocery store for a few items as well. We also tried a new place to us but not a new place for breakfast called Rumors. It was your typical greasy spoon with incredibly large portions. I ordered an omelet that was so large that I could only woof down about half. I think this place rivals Nick's in portion size. Bev and Ted came over for Chicken Chili and I made a batch of my soon to be famous Channa and Naan.

This week we're supposed to get hit with a pretty good snowstorm by Toledo standards and I need to go to Cabela's to by the roof top cargo carrier I've had my eye on for our vacation in March. Giant fish-bowl drink for two (sorry about the quality--phone camera)Giant Omelet (another poor photo)

Just a few video clips from Katelyn's birthday party last weekend. I will try to write more later.




And this is what happened to the cake a few days later:

Happy 1st Birthday Katelyn!!!