At Home in the Mountains

AUGUST    30 IF MARCH 15 (TPYED BY MADDY) (dictated by Maddy) Well one time there was this boy and he rode a train on Abbey's back. We met them at the park with Daddy and we saw him and told him who was which. That was when Daddy first started Bioschemistry (Bios Research). I'm sad about she died. She's a really sweet girl. She was my favorite dog that we had. She protected the whole family. I was worried about Abbey cause all my family was sad and I was sort of a little nervous about thinking I will never see her again until a long time. I poked paper umbrellas in her ears and she looked so beautiful. We did walks with her. We did a Roof Dog Race with her and now everything's just gonna be with Houdini. And all my class does not know how to say Houdini. I told Miss Oaks my dogs name and she was still alive and I was at my old kindergarten school. I told all my friends at prayer requests. My teacher knew about it. I don't know how. Mommy emailed ...

If you don't know where the title to this blog came from, you've missed the best Three Stooges episode ever made. Well at least one of the top three. Anyhow, spring has arrived in DFW. Even though my birthday is Two days before spring begins, I always think of my birthday as the beginning of spring. I had a really great birthday. Tammy came on Tuesday night and watched the girls while Aaron and I went to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I got chicken Marsala and Aaron got pasta with the kitchen sink which had a tomato sauce, chicken, sausage, shrimp, artichokes, and olives. Then we went to Kohl's and I got to pick out a new purse and wallet. I am thoroughly enjoying them I haven't had a new bag or wallet in years so what I had was literally falling apart. We also Shopped for some birthday gifts for Maddy. On the way home we stopped at Cafe Brazil and got coffee and dessert to go. I got chocolate cake, Aaron got carrot and we got Tam a slice of Italian...

Bit of a sad day for the Fletcher family. Our dog, Abbey, died either last night or early this morning. She was Maddy's favorite so Maddy has been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster today. She is sad because she can't play with Abbey anymore and didn't get to show her some of the new things she's been practicing, but she's happy because Abbey is in heaven. Right now we aren't getting into the whole do animals,have souls debate with her. We are just letting Abbey be in heaven for now. We sure wish she could have made it long enough to go run and play on our Colorado land. Houdini is pretty mopey right now. He has never been without Abbey. She was a good dog and a good watch dog. She protected the family and never barked unless a real problem was going on. She was a smart dog. We will miss her.

We spent the first part of Spring Break in Montrose helping to clear out some more of Gram's stuff. We got quite a few heavy pieces of furniture distributed and a lot of this dishes divided up. Aaron's aunt and uncle are going back down this week to stay til the house is completely cleared out and ready to go on the market. They have a lot to do still. We left Dallas early on Sunday morning. We had to get up at 3:30, which was really 2:30 because of the time change, to get to the airport. Mom and Dad picked us up and brought to cars so we could leave straight from Denver. The plan was for us to take the Explorer and haul our stuff back in a Uhaul to Colorado Springs. We ate breakfast at the Moonlight Diner next to the airport and then started the drive over the mountains. I drank a lot of coffee at the diner. Strategic move because Aaron tried to drive first and almost made it to Georgetown before he had to pull over. (That's barely out of Denver for those who haven't ...

We've been calling this week Ice Break 2015. Monday, school was canceled. Tuesday, DBU didn't open til noon. Wednesday, we were on a 2 hour delay. Friday, they closed school 2 hours early and today they canceled church. Were most of these cancellations necessary? Nope. But we'll take 'em. We had a great week relaxing and doing fun stuff we don't normally get to do. Maddy has bird watched, we visited Scottish Rite. Maddy will get a new AFO in a couple weeks. She was losing some ROM in her right ankle so need to go back into that AFO. We got to have lunch at one of Maddy's favorite spots--the Scottish Rite cafeteria. Wednesday afternoon was actually beautiful and sunny so we went on a walk. We also used Kelsay's birthday gift card  from the Halls to hit up Chick Fila for supper. Friday was the big snow. I don't think we've had real snow like that in Big D since Maddy was about 2. We had around 4 inches I think. The kids had a great time playing in the ...

 Maddy got a bird watching book from Aaron's aunt called "Look Up! Birdwatching in Your Own Backyard". She loved the book and it has inspired hours of bird watching, drawing birds, and taking field notes.  The first bird she observed was a sparrow. She draws a picture of the bird, writes the date, day of the week, time of day, where she saw it, what it was doing, and what it looked like.  Notes on a grackle and a pigeon.  Notes on a coyote she saw on a news story on TV. Notes on her first cardinal that she observed. Here's to many more hours of bird watching!

Aaron wanted me to post about Gram's funeral so I will do my best to write a good post about that. One funny thing that I didn't expect was that Maddy looked forward to the funeral like a party. She kept asking all the time we were in Montrose, "When are we going to celebrate Grams life?" She thoroughly enjoyed the time in Colorado and all the funeral proceedings. We enjoyed too. It was good time together with family although we were sad for Grams's absence. All the kids, grandkids and great grandkids were able to attend. The weather was beautiful while we were there. It felt like April instead of early February so the kids played outside the entire time which was good because there was a lot of stuff for them to get into in the house since papers, photos and other things were being sorted through. Lots of cousin time as well. When we got home, Maddy's teacher asked her how the funeral was. Maddy said, "It was fun!" I think the teacher was kind of ta...