Mike Jr. Surgery

Mike Jr. is having surgery this morning for a torn achilles tendon which he got while playing volleyball recently. Obviously, the recovery will make it difficult to practice dentistry since he has to stay seated in one room, so can't move from room to room to see patients. Please keep him in your prayers.

Mike

The post below is from an e-mail Andy sent.

Erin Maya Murphy

I sent the following to a few of you but thought I would post it here too.

Sarah and I have settled on a name for our little girl, Erin Maya Murphy. It was an easy choice for us. Erin is an Irish name meaning peace, and we chose Maya as a derivative of Sarah's Mother's name. Sarah never met her mother. Coincidentally, the word Maya means "peace" in Sarah's native language and is spelled the same way as the common name. As further confirmation, when we looked into the meaning of Maya in other languages we found the following:
In Hindi, Maya means "God's creative power
In Greek, Maya means "Grandmother or Mother"
In Latin, Maya means "Great"
We get more excited for Erin's arrival every day.

fun time

I am at ower cottage right know visiting with my sister and her
room mate from school.

Snow in October!

I thought you would all appreciate this - especially Steve and Pat, fresh back in sunny Florida! We were in a winter storm warning yesterday, but didn't get as much snow as forecasted. The wind was quite something though! Today has been cold and rainy, but Saturday will be 60 degrees. Crazy Nebraska weather! These pictures are looking out into the front yard and the back yard.

Pat and I returned to Naples Saturday and we are busy opening up our home and doing the necessary yard work - since we've been gone for four months. In a couple weeks our family will travel to Key West for a week of vacation in the sunny island paradise. We enjoyed our time on the mountain and I helped a neighbor install the interior trim to his large log home. It felt good to wear my tool-belt and pound nails. Actually I didn't pound many nails because we used air nailers - much easier!

Had a nice visits with Eileen, John and Anya. I said visits because they were here Saturday afternoon and then again Sunday afternoon. You can tell from the posting previous to this that part of the time was spent getting them invited and established as authors for the site. We can look forward to some interesting postings about things that will be happening in their family lives. While they were with Mom, she looked from one to the other very intently while they talked to her. I don't know how to describe my feelings as an observer. Glad, of course, that she was more responsive than during previous visits, but sad,too, thinking of all she would have had to say to them just a few short years ago - and also wondering what was really going on in her mind while looking into faces once so familiar. Those of us on this side of the curtain that separates us will never know, but let's believe that the bonds between her and us are the eternal kind - still there even if we can't understand the reasons for this temporary transmission interruption.
Truman

Visting with Truman

All,

Here we are visiting with our very own Truman. Guess what we have been doing? Getting us signed up for the family blog!!!

There is some great stuff on the site already. We will try to get pic's and news up soon.

God Bless

Eileen and John

Homecoming/Family Weekend

Steve and I visited Whitney last weekend. This is a picture of her dorm room.
The fall colors on campus were beautiful!
Her Philharmonia orchestra had a concert on Sunday afternoon.
After the concert, we went out to eat downtown.

The Krouse's

Dad told me about the blog site and I have enjoyed reading everyone’s postings.

I wanted to let everyone know that Kevin and I are expecting our first child!!!! We are very excited and we just found out today that we are having a boy. I am finishing up my 18th week and am due March 5th. I am sure the weeks will fly by with all the holidays approaching; it is crazy to think I am almost ½ way there already. So far we are right on schedule and baby Krouse is healthy.

I know mom and dad are very excited to have their first grandchild on the way. This is also the first grandchild on Kevin's side. One thing is for sure is our child won't have a shortage of love from the grandparents and hopefully babysitters :)

Emily

Lakeside

Our visit to Lakeside was quieter this year since Sarah and her family could not go. We still stayed in the same cottage since the price is right and the location good. Our weather was cool, but not much cooler than back in Virginia. We got a little rain the first week, and only had one morning we couldn't walk. The wind was out of the Northeast most days, which blew in some type of algae that I had read about. It smelled bad, and was supposed to give you a skin rash if you were in it. We went over to East Harbor one day, but it was too cool to sit on the beach. There were not many boats out perch fishing most days due to the rough water. They tend to close the dock these days when any waves splash up on it, which frustrates me because it used to be fun to dodge them. Must be some type of liability issue.

We took the ferry to Kelley's Island and road our bikes around it again. The perch lunch at the Pump was good as always. I have not been used to bike riding as I have in the past, so was a little tender by the time we were through.

We ate at Mon Ami winery, which is our favorite place up there these days. Also, Abigail's is now Evelyn's at the Abigail, which Scott told you about. Meals our more upscale, so more expensive, but the food we had was very good. They are doing a total renovation of the place over the winter, and we look forward to seeing it next year. They closed up for the season the last weekend we were there.

As always the ambiance of the place and the quiet this time of year is very enjoyable. There can't be many places in the country like Lakeside. Its also nice to see all the Ohio State flags and shirts that I don't see much of around Virginia.

Mike

New York City

Maureen and I are going to New York City for the weekend. Her cousin has an apartment on Union Square that is empty during the weekends, so he lets family and friends stay there. We will drive up to the Staten Island Ferry terminal and take the free ferry to Battery Park. The ferry terminal is a about an hour and a half drive from our house. From Battery Park, we will probably take a cab to the apartment. We may go see the Intrepid Museum which just reopened after an extensive overhaul of the aircraft carrier.

Union Square has a farmer's market every Saturday with over 100 vendors from around the state. I told Maureen that she can select whatever ingredients she wants, and I will prepare dinner with them for her. The apartment building has a lawn terrace on the 10th floor with several gas grills for residents to use, so I may be grilling outside tomorrow evening.