Dad's Birthday and Introducing: Teddy



Dad's amazed that my child prodigy can already drive a tractor

I'll start this blog by wishing my dad a Happy Birthday. My brothers, sister, and I are very lucky to have had a dad like him.

Since it's Dad's birthday, I'd like to take a few minutes to refect about him :).

First, let's be truthful. He wasn't one of the "fun" dads. We grew up with rules and lots of supervision. But we were protected and cared for and given one heckuva childhood.

We travelled much of the United States (and parts of Canada) on different family trips (all loaded up in the station wagon, with a tent or camper in tow), visiting landmarks and relatives along the way. We grew up together in the family home (that he built!) on 40 acres of beautiful wooded land, and were provided with bicycles and hoola hoops and all the paraphenalia for an active, creative childhood.

His interest in nature inspired us, and we grew up collecting leaves and rocks and fossils... learning the names of the various trees around us at an early age. We always had pets and a garden and chores to do (piling wood, washing dishes). One of my earliest memories is of him and mom canning peaches together.

We didn't have lots of neighbor kids to play with (a few, though-- Karen Z. and Jim Skubal!) but we had lots of adventures, working together to build forts, biking up and down Shepard Lake Road, and playing outside (statue maker, Red Coats & Blue Coats, baseball... you name it, we probably played it).

Mom was the regular cook of our household, but once a week Dad would cook up one of his specialties... home-made pizza, lasagna, and tacos were some of the favorites. Unless someone was deathly ill we never missed church. We were allowed to have summer jobs, but schoolwork-- not money-- was the priority. He spoke to us in complete sentences, didn't swear or drink, and filled our house with books. We always had paper and pencils and a safe place to doodle, write, and dream.

Yes, there were spankings. But there was also love, stability, and structure. And now that we're adults, we realize how much we were given, and that maybe we didn't have it so bad :). And Dad's respectful affection for his adult children and their spouses / significant others is much appreciated. He did his part raising us; now he's happy to just enjoy us and let us be whoever we've turned out to be. He is loving and helpful and sympathetic.

It has been quite an example, too, to have someone as deeply moral as him in my life. He doesn't lie, he doesn't cheat (even on taxes)... if he runs across someone in trouble, he helps. My childhood is dotted with memories of him helping strangers... for awhile, a homeless woman and her daughter lived with us (they vanished after Dad suggested maybe the daughter should be in school). At one state park we encountered a drunken Native American who needed a ride... we loaded him up in the station wagon and took him where he needed to go. Stranded motorists, people needing a jump in parking lots-- whenever he encountered a person in need, he helped.

His deep love and respect for his parents and my mom's parents set a wonderful example for me. We visited them all frequently and I never heard an unkind or sarcastic word spoken in regard to any relative. TV shows always joke about the "monsters-in-law" and other ridiculous relatives, but that's not what I saw in my childhood and that's not what I experience with my in-laws today. I've learned that if you look for the good in other people, you usually find it. I know the world's not full of perfect people; in fact, that was one of the big lessons of my teen years-- I had come to expect such exemplary behavior from adults I was constantly surprised at the "real-world" adults I encountered who were, let's just say, less than exemplar.

Michael LOVES piling firewood

Well! As you might guess, I could go on and on about my dad's good qualities, but at some point he's going to get embarrassed, so I better stop here and sum it all up with one more "Happy Birthday, Dad." And thank you.


As far as life here in Colfax the past few weeks... it's been typical. Michael and Emma take care of the firewood and have been busy with basketball. Emma's big Destination Imagination tournament is coming up this weekend.

Nice to look out my kitchen window this winter and see this

We've had a mild winter... only one cold spell I can think of (made all the colder because we were having problems with our furnace that week), and only a modest amount of snow. It's snowing right now, though... we have about two inches of new snow. Very wet and packy.

Emma, Michael, and Leila

Leila enjoyed her first Valentine's Day at school. Her class had a party and she came home with a box full of valentines and candy from her classmates. She likes having "friends".

Candy!!!!!!!

One big change in our family is that we've adopted a little dog named Teddy. We found Teddy at the animal shelter in Menomonie a couple of weeks ago, and were able to bring him home last Tuesday.

Teddy Hurlburt

It wasn't easy, getting Teddy. We weren't the only people who wanted to adopt him. We were only third out of four applicant families. We really wanted him but tried not to get our hopes too high.

(Blogger changed its format recently and I am having trouble figuring out how to do things, so if my blog looks kind of herky jerky this time, sorry for that).



Daddy's new baby



Anyway, we filled out a 2 page application at the Humane Society, where we had to answer all manner of questions about our home and what our plans for Teddy were. They called our vet for a background check and I did two phone interviews. We had to sign a contract agreeing to have Teddy fixed by a certain date. The whole process took several weeks, but in the end it was worth it... we were able to bring Teddy home.

Teddy's new family

The people at the humane society think Teddy is a Pomeranian, about 3 months old. He was found in a Walmart parking lots with a blue collar that said "Teddy" on it. A lady found him cowering by the shopping carts. She picked him up and walked all over the parking lot, looking for a possible owner, but Teddy didn't seem to belong to anyone. She then took him inside the store and had the intercom page for anyone who had lost a dog, and waited 45 minutes for a response. Again, no one came for Teddy.  So she took him to the animal shelter.



Bob and his girlfriend Nancy came for a visit





This new blogger format is very frustrating! I apparently have no control over where pictures end up or how things are centered.

Anyway, Teddy is fitting into our family just fine. He's already made quite a bit of progress as far as house-training, and he no longer cries when you put him in the kennel at night. We let him run all around the house, but his favorite thing is to snuggle up on someone's lap and get love. The kids are absolutely delighted with him, and Jon is (in my opinion) cute in how he seems to dote on Teddy.

Jack's serious side

I'm going to be a musician someday!

Lovely Lindsay

He's simple, but we love him

The maestros

Jack, Lindsay, and Jonathan came over for a visit on Sunday. Jack seems to like Teddy a lot, though at first he wasn't too sure. He likes chasing after Teddy... not being the one chased.

Emma took about 30 pictures of their visit, and I was going to post a few more but blogger's starting to act up and I would be more than a little disgusted if I lost this blog before it posted. So I'm going to hurry up and post it.