Our Faithful Friend is gone

KC, our faithful friend passed away this morning. We are a sad group around here today and will be for a long while. She would have turned 14 in March. Three of the four kids don't remember life without her. We will have some adjusting to do.
I'm very thankful that we did not have to make the final decision. She had been up and acting normal (her new "sick" normal). She went outside and laid down in the snow and was gone about 10 minutes later.
Don't call ~ none of us would be able to get thru a conversation. :(
~~Kathy~~~
“No animal I know of can consistently be more of a friend and companion than a dog.”
Stanley Leinwoll

To the capitol we go.....

TeenPact Leadership School is coming to Kansas for the first time! We are very excited. This last year has been a lot of work getting ready for this class, but I know that it will all be worth it.

I have already made my first airport run today to pick up one of the staffers that flew in from TX. I will leave in a bit to pick up 2 more. They are coming from GA and AR. Then later 2 others drive in (OH & TX) and the last one of the day arrives this evening(OK).

This is where we will be spending the week:That is all for now! :)
~~Kathy~~~

Poor Dog

A few of you have asked about KC. The vet can't find out anything wrong with her paw. But Kevin thinks he saw a hot spot on her paw. She is a mess right now. The good thing is that her liver function is great. So we are right on with her meds for that. But as of right now we can't get her to stand on her own at all. It isn't pretty.
Becca has been taking pictures of her almost daily.......~~Kathy~~~

Multi Piano Event

I wish that we had better pictures, but my camera is a hand-me-up from one of the kids. :) Maybe we will have to invest in a new one soon.
A couple of weekends ago the 3 youngest were all involved with a MultiPiano concert. I have never seen anything like it. There were 18 grands on the stage at the Lied Center on the KU campus. And for most songs there 2 people at each piano! The performers were piano students from all over the KC area. It was really something to see. If you get out the old magnifying glass you might see Sarah and Becca seated at the second piano in on the left hand side.
Sarah performed 2 songs with Becca. Then Sarah and Zach played 3 songs together.In the above picture you see the kid's piano teacher (next to Sarah) and some of her students. A few had already left by the time we took the pictures.

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On another note~ I'm off to the vet (again). KC started limping yesterday. Kevin looked at her paw last night and there is something wrong with it. Now today she WILL NOT stand at all. We have tried and tried and when 2 people hold her up she still falls down. :(

~~Kathy~~~

Bible Quizzing

Last Saturday Kevin and I took 6 (2 person) teams to Awana Bible Quizzing. It was a great day. Out of the 6 teams 5 of them placed. Becca's team took 2nd place in her division. She was pretty excited.
Here are some of the kids waiting for the quizzing to start.

Becca with her team mate. The nerves were running on high as this was right before they started.
Becca got a ribbon for scoring a perfect. Here she is getting that reward.
All of the kids. Much relief that it was over. We had several first timers and they didn't know what to expect at the beginning.
~~Kathy~~~

Catching up time

I have been amazed that my flowers are blooming in January. I brought my 2 large pots from the front porch in when fall hit. I put them in our bathroom to see if they would make it. I lost the white alyssum died almost immediately, but the geraniums and the tall, spikey grass thingys have made it. It has been fun to watch the geraniums bloom ever so often.
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I have not been very faithful in keeping up the blog lately. :( Just too much going on, I guess. So I will try to fill you in on a few things.

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Last week I went on a little get away. A friend invited me to go to Lake of the Ozarks to stay at a relatives condo. So we left Sunday and came back on Wednesday. We split our time up between scrapbooking and shopping. It was great fun.

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We have had a few bugs go thru the house lately. All of us except Sarah have had some form of the flu. Stomach variety as well as the aches and fever variety. Won't go into details, but it has not been fun. Thankfully they have all been short lived.

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We have been putting lots of time and energy into making TeenPact a reality in Kansas. We were pretty sure that we were going to have to cancel the class for this year, but at the last minute our numbers jumped! We are very excited. We needed 30 students in the week long class and we now have 33. We also have 44 (8-12 year olds) signed up for the one day class. So things are moving along nicely. But that being said, if you call us in the next few weeks don't be surprised if I sound a bit crazed as it is taking a lot of time.

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While I was away my sweet family decided to start a new home improvement project. They stripped almost all of the wall paper from the master bedroom. So to say that our bedroom and bathroom are a mess right now is an understatement! I worked yesterday from about 10:30-6:30 on that project. They had gotten almost all of the outer layer of the wallpaper off, but not the paper underneath! But that part of the project is almost done. Just a few more hours and we will be ready for the filler, primer and then paint. Just have to decide on the wall color!

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Josh is preparing the 3rd - 6th graders in Awana for the Awana games. None of these kids have ever participated in the games before so it is new to them. That will be happening in a few weeks. We will let you know how that goes. :)

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KC has been very sick lately. For about a month now. She had stopped eating (almost) and we just thought that this was her time. She will be 14 next month. After some testing this week we just found out that she has hepatitis! Who knew???? I had no idea that dogs could get it. Becca is waiting for me right now to go pick her up. The diagnosis is pretty good for her now that we can treat her for the right thing.
That is all for now.
~~Kathy~~~

21 years old?????

21? Can it be? Josh had a birthday on Monday. So he celebrated on Sunday with a Super Bowl party. It is amazing to realize that we have a 21 year old in the family. Thankfully we have Becca to help us feel young!

Double chocolate brownie cheesecake :)

The crowd.

~~Kathy~~~