Quincy’s Top 10 10 If you came into our house your shoes were stolen GUARANTEED. Never chewed because he just wanted to play and get attention
9. LA Beaches are not dog friendly, so I used have to sneak him on to the beach at 6am to go running. While I would run he would follow me and take swims. On 2 occasions we were chased by the LA Animal Control and successfully outran a $500 ticket.
8. He was a much better surfer than me. I could throw a Frisbee out into 6 foot waves and he could navigate the break to avoid being pounded and then amazingly time the waves to ride them perfectly back in.

7. He ate an entire chicken carcass and was sick as a dog but SURVIVED. I don’t mean just a couple bones, we are talking breast, wings, legs and everything. By the way he didn't learn his lesson because he did it again 4 months later.
6. He ate my drivers license and credit cards TWICE within 3 months. The first time I had to fly out the very next day. Try talking your way onto to a flight and into a rental car with half a license.

5. He was a master food thief. Almost every meal he would wait for one of the kids to drop their guard for just a second. He would then come up from under the table like Jaws and attack their hand or plate. All you would see is wild eyes, teeth, food and then hear the cries of our kids
4. Karen spent two days baking and carving a homemade Choo Choo Train birthday cake for Landon’s 1st birthday. I was upstairs and literally heard Karen screaming like somebody just died. I came downstairs and Quincy in a single leap had jumped up onto the counter and taken a massive bite out of the locomotive’s engine. We used extra frosting and cake crumbs to rebuild.
3. While running on the beach we spotted a 6 foot sea lion on the shore. Quincy ran ahead of me to charge it and I thought it was going to be the end of him. At the last second he stopped dead in his tracks about 10 feet away from it. They both looked in each others eyes and Quincy went smartly around.
2. Quincy to his detriment used to love to eat all the junk he found at the beach and it was my job to wrestle it from him. He was eating what looked like a stick, only when I pulled it out of his mouth it wasn’t a stick. It was a petrified rat and the stick was the rat’s tail. I don’t think I have ever washed my hands so many times.
1. 100% TRUE: We were walking him on our friends street and Quincy saw a really nice house with a pool. He ran under the fence and immediately dove in. The owners were right there and this guy angrily reached into the pool and pulled Quincy out by the scruff of his neck and walked him back over to us. It was Christian Bale. Quincy was rescued by Batman.
0. When we lived in Venice, Quincy was like the Mayor. All the homeless people absolutely loved him. He was like Mother Theresa and he would disgustingly wash their feet with his tongue. I would be walking down the street and people would be shouting Quincy from every street corner.<

Quincy: A Eulogy

I have so many memories of Quincy flooding through my head over these past weeks as we realized he would not be with us much longer. I need to write them down now so they do not pass along with him. I will never forget picking Quincy up in July 2003 from Oxnard. I was so nervous, having never owned a dog before. I read about how puppies can get carsick and I worried the whole drive home, down PCH listening to David Grey, that he would puke on me. He didn't.

He was our first baby. We read books about puppies, we did all we could to give him a good start to life. He traveled with us to faraway lands, like Catalina, Palm Springs, Carmel, & Big Bear. He traversed the wild streets of Venice on a daily basis. He made friends with all the homeless people and we joked that he was like the mayor of Venice because all his friends would call out to him, "hey Quincy!" as he walked his usual routes. He was just as likely to kiss a baby's toes as to lick a homeless person's toes. If you think about that enough, you will likely gag. He would start licking and I would be pulling him away, "okay, Quincy it's time to go!", needless to say with panic and repulsion in my voice.
He was known to chew things up, namely Jon's wallet, twice, and my wedding shoes, thankfully after the wedding was over. He would bite me with his razor puppy teeth to the point I might have cried a time or two. 

Quincy loved the beach, especially Marina Del Rey. He loved to swim. He loved to get super sandy and wet and stand right next to you before shaking sandy water all over you. He could swim for hours if you let him. Quincy brought many special families into our lives who we never would have met if not on the beach via our pups.

 

 

He loved both of our babies from the moment we brought them home, even as their arrivals knocked him down the totem pole of our family structure. I was the most guilty of this, leaving Jon to happily continue to tend to Quincy's needs as I focused on the children. Quincy did not have a mean bone in his body and loved to be around Avery and Landon, especially at meal times.

 

 

 

 

 
He learned very early on as Avery began to eat solids that the best place to be was directly under a young child's place at the table. We eventually had to lock him in the laundry room during meals so he wouldn't find opportune times to steal a peanut butter sandwich, destroy a birthday cake, or eat 2 whole chicken carcasses in the course of 1 week. He could eat and eat and eat. 
As his paw started dragging and his head started tilting, we did not realize how quickly things would progress to where he couldn't walk without assistance. Never have we been faced with such a difficult decision in our family as to when to take him to the vet to receive medicine to end his suffering. Today was that day. We are heartbroken. Beyond heartbroken. There will be no scuffle of his paws downstairs, no more barking when someone come to the door, no more tail wagging when the kids come home from school, no more belly rubs, no more swimming in the sea.
You were the best dog, Quincy, Quinny-bin, Quinny-bear, Quinny-boo, Quiny Binny Boo, Booboo bear, Pupa Pa Nub, Pupa Dupa, Pupa Lupa. Thank you for teaching me how to love a dog and for forgiving me those times when I didn't love you the way you deserved (like when I would curse your name as I vacuumed your white fur off our black floors, endlessly).

Long Time No Blog

It's been over a year since I posted anything here. I have major feelings of guilt about not documenting my children's lives, especially Landon's. I mean really, how long will he be 3? How long was he 2? 365 days. Why can't I find/make the time in those 365 days to write a little something? At least Avery got some good coverage for the first few years of her life. I am not a scrap booker, not even a Shutterfly scrap booker, so this is it. And so I try again, working backward from today.
This kid is a piece of work. He is delightful at times and challenging at others. The other day I walked into the bathroom to find this. 

He always asks, "who gave me this?". Sadly (or interestingly) most of the things he asks this about are things that were given to Avery when she was little. For example, Rocky the rocking horse that our dear friends the Hollands gave Avery when she was two. I tell him the horse's name is Rocky and he says, "No, I don't like that name, his name is do la ja wo gee jo." Okay kid, whatever you say.

Self-portrait

The week before Open House, Avery's homework was to add hair to the self portrait she drew at school. I went to Target, who knew Target doesn't sell yarn? But as I drove to Michaels I talked to my sweet sister about my yarn dilemma. She said they would have yarn that matched her hair exactly. Turns out they did have every color under the sun and even some curly yarn. Avery insisted that the yarn be "golden".We got to view this on display at Open House. We were so proud of all the work we saw that Avery had done throughout the year. On her desk was a folder of her writing from the year, in chronological order. It was amazing to see the progress she has made with writing. I had to run off to night shift after open house so I was distracted and did not bring my phone to take the quintessential "kid with the teacher" picture. But I do have this picture from when Avery won an award for Achievement in writing in February. She loves loves loves her teacher Ms. Hodges.

Jon did take one picture from the art show in the cafeteria, entitled "Starry Beach Night", inspired by my fave, Vincent van Gogh. I LOVE the lifeguard stand and palm tree.

Frozen at the beach

We are having a drought and unseasonably hot weather this spring. One day after school the 4 of us headed to the beach. Jon and I noticed something bobbing south along the waves. We could not tell if is was a raft, with or without someone holding on, or what it ended up to be: a bundle of balloons. The waves brought the balloons to shore and Jon ran over to grab them before they were taken back out to sea. Imagine the kids' great delight to see that they were Frozen balloons. Elsa on one side, Anna on the other. My kids have been Obsessed with Frozen since they saw it in the theater. They love to listen to and sing all the songs. When we go to Whole Foods these days, Landon makes me get him a large single carrot so he can pretend to be Olaf. So they were overjoyed to play with this find for the rest of our time at the beach.

Curious Troublemaker

Landon is not really a kid who can be left alone for extended periods of time. This morning in particular he was experimenting with band aids. Not only did he cover both his nose and mouth (not a good idea) but he also stuck a big band aid on his eye and beautiful long eyelashes. He did not like when I had to peel that one off. Now he knows what happens when one sticks band aids all over their face.

Counting

Last week, all of a sudden, after forgetting about the numbers 5 and 6 for a couple of weeks, Landon was counting correctly all the way up to 10. Since that day, he has yet to remember 5 and 6 again. So it goes like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.  He also went from singing the alphabet while missing half the letters to now getting almost all of them. It's super cute to listen to him singing nursery rhymes. He especially loves twinkle twinkle and its a small world. We love this smart little guy so much.

Truck Lover

Jon is constantly coming up with home improvement projects. One of these was building a portable fence to block off our driveway from our relatively busy street to let the kids and Quincy play out front a little bit while he gardens. The longest available fence to be found is only 25 feet across and we needed one that was 30 feet across so Jon came up with this system of pipes, netting and zip ties to make our very own special fence. We recently set it up one morning so Landon could watch the trucks that were working on our street. He loved watching them while we would walk Avery to school and didn't want to stop watching them when we got home.

Sweetest Words

Avery has taken to writing us letters. She will leave one on my pillow or give one to me when she gets home from school. They brighten my life. Here is a recent example. Sweet girl. And yes I will show this to her when she's a teenager and doesn't feel quite this way anymore!

That's my kid

While in Atlanta, my sister gave me 2 pictures of me from when I was a toddler. We showed them to Landon and said, "who's that?" and he said, "Landon".  See what you think.

Warning... Gross

Prior to our departure for Atlanta, the kids sink was clogged mostly with Avery's hair. I asked Jon to deal with it but in the chaos of getting ready to travel, it was left for several days. We also have taken to eating chia seeds in smoothies and oatmeal. They contain omega 3 fatty acids, fiber, antioxidants and minerals. Anyhow, they tend to get stuck in between teeth and are best removed by brushing your teeth. Do you see where this is headed? No? So sink is clogged with hair, then Avery brushes her teeth, chia seeds get stuck in the hair ball and alas, we come home 5 days later to a little chia plant growing out of our sink. So disgusting, but also an interesting little science experiment.  And since Jon was still sick upon our return home, I had the great pleasure of cleaning out this mess!

Gross, I know.

Grandma Libby turns 95

My beautiful, beloved grandmother Elizabeth turned 95 this March and we were so fortunate to get the whole family together and have a lovely party for her. Unfortunately the first night we arrived in ATL Jon came down with some wicked stomach bug that left him out of commission the whole trip and beyond. But the kids and I enjoyed our time with Grandma Libby, Grancy, Aunt Nita, Aunt Nancy, Uncle Mayo, Aunties Kate and Bee and all the cousins. We also got to see my college friend Karla. She brought the kids little gifts including chocolate covered bugs. The kids loved them, apparently not caring what the chocolate was covering. We went to the High Museum to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. I didn't see much from the floor where we set up the kids to color pictures to keep them out of trouble, but it was still lovely.The party had a great turnout. We also had a fun easter egg hunt for the kids in my grandma's yard. Our flight home was crazy delayed but we did all make it home :)

Landon Eating the Chocolate Covered Bug

Cousins playing at the water-logged park to keep out of trouble during party prep time

My handsome nephew

I love this picture

Oh yes, it's true, that says flight home from ATL to LAX was delayed 6hr 19 min, and indeed it was...

Dancing in the airport, they were such troopers during the delay

The new Pauley

Thanks to Great Work Perks, Jon and I were able to go to a UCLA basketball game this year. I got to see the newly remodeled Pauley Pavilion and it is super cool. They have made it very contemporary but have preserved the old center court in a sort of museum-style exhibit on the east side of the building. I hope to get back there again soon. I would love to take Avery to watch gymnastics there too. When I was 8, my mom took me to the Olympic gymnastics exhibition at the old Pauley and I can still remember my first exposure to UCLA. I loved watching Mary Lou Retton and Bart Conner perform.  I digress. UCLA beat Arizona State 79-74 in overtime. They went on to be a terrible disappointment in the Tournament, but I did enjoy watching them win on the new home court. I love this place.

Road Trip

The public schools in our city are part of their own school district. We have been very happy with our little (less than 370 K-5 students) neighborhood school so far. The principal, teachers, and support staff have been great. Due to budget cuts, this year we have 6 furlough days. At least they were kind enough to add the furlough days onto 3 day weekends to make them 4 days or at the beginning of spring break to make it 12 days instead of 11 days. That I appreciate, although I obviously wish there were no furlough days. Mid-February for President's Day weekend we took a little getaway to Palm Springs to stay at my friend's condo. It was great fun. We got to swim, go to the zoo and eat lots of frozen yogurt, the best of which was at Eddie's Frozen yogurt, so yummy. We brought Quincy too and he was in heaven. Landon figured out how to climb out of the pack and play this trip which was not so much fun. He was up very early each morning roaming around trying to find some trouble to get into, the worst of which was to drink the remnants from my wine glass from the previous night, surely not more than a drop or two.

 Sweet, cuddly, sleepy guy

 view from the balcony

 Cool train exhibit at the zoo

 Sooo hot

 Carousel at the zoo

Lots of fun swimming time with our little tadpole

We love kindergarten

Watching Avery progress in Kindergarten this year has been so much fun. She went from knowing her letters and loving to be read to, to now trying to write sentences of her own. Her teacher insists that we not help with spelling, that she spell as she hears the word and I guess eventually she will learn how the words are really spelled. She also has done great with her sight word lists. She got to go to a father/daughter dance with Daddy and she had so much fun with him and all her friends. They did a little girl conga line and had shaved ice.

Avery's shrinky dink Valentine for her beloved teacher, aka chycher.