Recently Danni got accepted into the church band. It's pretty cool what Christian musician's are doing now a days. For Danni's birthday this year I got her a bunch of Christian CDs because that's what she wanted. She sings them in the car with me all the time. They are pretty good. Wish I had more time to learn them so we could do them together. Gotta get her to rip them and push them out to my server.
Danni also recently got her computer up and running. IM'ed with here for the first time last night. Well I've IM'ed her before but this is the first time she initiated it.
Recently tragedy struck Diamond, Danielle's dog. Mary-Anne, her mother, explains:
Hello All,
I wanted to let you know about our little sheltie. The gate got left opened by Accident on Tuesday and I was inside with 2 toddlers and a newborn. When I noticed that Diamond wasn�t in the back yard I went out and called for her. She was on the other side of the gate. As I let her in I noticed that she was not walking on her front left foot. I picked her up to see if she had something in her foot and realized there was something terribly wrong with her leg. I called Stuart and the Vet right away. I called Poppy and she called her husband for me (needless to say I was quite upset) He rushed over from his job at our church and took the dog to the vet for me. Stuart met him there and we found out she had a Dislocated leg (Same Elbow as mine same type of brake)They took ex-rays and bandaged her up and we need to keep her quite for a week. In a week time the bandage will come off and hopefully with a lot of prayers she will be fine and just need a little physical therapy. If not then it is surgery. So if you could all pray that would be appreciated.
This is a Diamond and she is a really good dog, very good with the kids.
Thank you all
Love Mary-Anne
And God Bless
Danni and I are currently fighting. I grounded her for misbehaving and, of course, she doesn't like that. She asked me to move the punchment to next weekend, which defeats the purpose really. It's a pity that this is ruining Valentine's day for us...
Well Danni's new bedroom set arrived today and I spend time putting it together. I have to admit I think she picked out a nice set. I think she feels that she has her own style and taste and that she got what she wanted. Mary-Anne and I switched Danni's normal Tuesday night with Wednesday night so she get's to sleep in her new bed. I sure hope she likes having two mattresses. She said that it feels soft for her and she likes it but I guess we'll see...
Halloween was relatively uneventual this year, especially compared to last year when my wife was thrown in jail for domestic violence a week or two before.
Danni was a biker chick and she and her best friend Destiny, did some trick or treating at Uncle Kevin and Poppies for a while. They seemed to like one house where the teenage boys of the house dressed as Freddie and Jason, etc and would scare the trick or treaters. I think it's more a girls and boys sort of thing but the scare thing is fun at Halloween.
Then we went to Destiny's neigborhood and did some trick or treating there and finally at my new apartment. Seems to me that every year more and more people simply don't do Halloween. I mean many of the places we went to had lights on, often with Halloween decorations and still nobody would answer the door. Seems just rude to me. I guess it was just different when I was a kid back in Jersey although there were many houses that didn't answer the door. But it seemed to me that they were generally dark and/or devoid of any Halloween decorations.
Went over Mary-Anne's today to carve pumpkins. It was nice to be involved in a family activity. The pumpkins came out pretty good too. Ready for Halloween. After a very hot October this year the temperature finally dropped to be more fall like.
Yesterday we went to the Pumpkin Patch in Morgan Hill as is customary. I had bad vibes going there since last year it was so horrible with Olga being upset and all. We went at night so we didn't have much time and none of the side shops were open. We just did our business and got a single pumpkin this year and left. Danni really did all the work by rolling the wheel barrow and hauling the pumpkin and all.
I had just come back from visiting my Mom and had been away from Danni for a week. Mary-Anne was kind enough to pick me up at San Francisco Airport. Danni was glad to see me and woke up immediately when she heard my voice (it was late and she was sleeping). We were waiting for my luggage when Mary-Anne had said that Stuart, her husband, was in the van circling the airport in order to avoid having to park. She said that Danni was tired and that she had debated leaving Danni in the van with Stuart. At that point Danni stood up, stamped her foot and said "I haven't seen my Daddy in one whole week and you wanted to leave me in the car! I don't think so!" I told her Mary-Anne that I didn't think that she should be teaching Danni the "I don't think so" phrase that Mary-Anne was tending to use a lot as of late.
Recently I got a cat for Danielle. She wanted a kitten but kittens are not typically born in the winter. We settled for 1 year 3 month old "kitty". We got her from the Santa Clara Animial Shelter and her name was Jinx so we kept that name.
Jinx was a typical kitten and was kind of shy and not wanting to play. All Danielle wanted to do was play with Jinx. Danielle was not too familiar with how to play gently with kittens but I figured that she'd learn soon enough.
One day while at my computer I heard Jinx meowing pretty loudly and I called out to Danielle "Danni! What are you doing?". Danni said "Teaching Jinx how to tumble. She's not too good at tumbling".
I had Danielle for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was interesting having her for the night and her excitement level was up about Santa Claus. We had watched a couple of Christmas videos including The Santa Clause by Tim Allen in which Tim becomes the Santa Claus when he accidently kills the old Santa. During the movie it is said that Santa Claus will come down the heater if the house has no chimney. As a result Danni insisted that I hang her stocking next to my heater.
Mary-Anne describes a story about Danielle and Christmas: Danielle was being a pretend reindeer and we wanted her to stop so we could decorate the tree. Danielle had been talking to the tree since we had cut it down. She would tell it not too worry that we were taking it home and he would have a nice place to live. We told her that the christmas tree was scared that she was being a reindeer cause reindeers eat christmas tree. She apoligized to the tree and promised she would not eat it.
Meanwhile, while riding home to my house one day Danni leaned over and whispered into my ear so faint that I could not hear her. I asked her to speak louder and she say she couldn't because the trees might hear. Not remember we're in a car traveling on a freeway at 65 MPH with the windows closed. Then she told me the secret that her mom had told her, that reindeers eat Christmas trees and said that she didn't want the trees to hear that because they would be frightened.
This year I also put out an Electronic Christmas Card.