Marty update

Marty is doing well, but hasn't improved enough to return to St. Francis. Instead, on Friday, he'll be moving to the nursing home Judy found over on the North Shore. He'll do therapy there with the hope that enough improvement will allow him to return to St. Francis. The new place is very nice, though, and he should be comfortable there. And knowing Marty, he'll have a new bevy of girlfriends lined up in no time.

Judy and Chrissy are very busy with caretaking and arrangements these days, as you can imagine. We appreciate their efforts very much.

A sad good-bye and a couple of tiny hellos

Mezza Luna the rat left us to go on to her next great adventure yesterday morning. We'll miss her very much.

Mezza Luna

2004 - 2006

Sister, comedian, intrepid sailor,

flying wonder, determined explorer, friend

To keep Snowball from getting lonely, we brought home a couple of new friends yesterday afternoon. Please join me in welcoming our two very tiny boys, Rodney the Rat (pronounced Wodney the Wat) and Lestat.
















Rodney is in the foreground. Lestat was irritated with all the flashing and wouldn't come out any more. (Vampires don't like the light, you know.)

One more:

All is right with our world again

Chloe is home!!!

After an all-night farewell party at school and a *really* long travel day, Chloe arrived safe and sound in Seattle earlier this evening. She is full of stories and laughter and eager to dive back into regular life here. She's especially looking forward to the food; we hit the grocery store this morning to stock up on all her special requests (things ranging from Cornish game hens to lemon meringue pie to strawberries).

Right now, she's asleep in her own bed after having a bath in her own tub. I hope she'll sleep through the night and avoid the whole jetlag thing. It'd be nice to have a little time with her tomorrow! :-) I'm taking a couple days off for that purpose. Frank isn't sure yet what his work schedule will be like -- they don't know more than an hour in advance when they're going to need him. Anyway, we'll put together some fun family time. We don't have any firms plans for what to do except that, tomorrow, we're going to see Pirates 2 again.

Marty moving soon

The report from Judy:

"Not so great news. Dad's social worker called Chrissy today & said that the neurologist did not expect him to improve much so he'll need to go into a nursing home when he leaves [the hospital].... We're trying to get as much info as possible on the homes that are available. I think we'll try to go Sat. to look at them. There really is no reason for dad to be in the hospital any more so I expect he'll be getting discharged soon.... I'm concerned that he'll get very depressed when he finds out that he's not going back to St. Francis. We may tell him it's temporary to keep his spirits up. We'll have to see."

Also, the docs plan to do another assessment on Tues. and then meet with Chris and Judy. I'll post an update as we hear more.

A new flower on the Maier family tree

Proud parents Sonya and Robert welcomed a new addition to their beautiful family yesterday!Anja (pronounced "AHN-ya") Grace was born July 3rd at 2:37pm - 6lb 10oz, 20 1/2" long. Sonya says, "It was a very peaceful and amazingly smooth birth.... Her big sisters are very enthusiastic, and Papa's very proud of his new princess. Grandma [Grace] and big sister Maria were there for the birth."

Our congrats!!

The foal arrived!

The foal was born in the wee hours of Saturday morning. He doesn't have a name yet, but it will probably start with H (they (re)name their horses alphabetically, and he comes after his mother Faith and sister Grace). Jenny votes for Hallelujah, but John doesn't like that much, so the debate continues.

As you can see from the picture below, his extra month of "cooking" time made for some loooong legs on this little guy.

GG and Mezza update

My grandma is home from the hospital and getting steadily better. She's very impatient to feel well, but she's enjoying all the visitors she's been having. She will probably skip tomorrow's festivities.

Mezza is a yo-yo. One day, she's at death's door and the next, she seems better. Today is a good day. Her appetite is good -- she *loves* sweet potato baby food -- and she isn't falling over quite so much. We're keeping our fingers crossed that today's good spell is a sign of things to come.

The gauntlet has been thrown down

To those of you who come out to the beach for the 4th:

Please be advised that one of my mom and Tom's neighbors has let it be known that her family will be dressing up as pirates for the parade. We are taking this as fine flattery -- obviously, our Priest Point Pirates have been quite an inspiring sight in years past. But we also take it as a call to arms. Please bring all your finest pirate garb, weaponry, and decorations so that we can defeat these interlopers into our territory.

BATTLE!!

Marty update

We just talked to Chris. Marty is doing pretty well, but they aren't seeing the kind of improvement we had hoped for. While his spirits are good and his speech isn't too impaired, he still has pain and doesn't have much mobility in his right arm and leg. His medical team will do another evaluation the middle of next week that should give us a better idea of where he'll go from here. In the meantime, Chris and Judy are looking into rehab centers and nursing homes but holding his spot at St. Francis, and Marty is watching a lot of Law and Order to fill his time.