MBA Complete but Thanks Due to So Many

As most of you know, I graduated on Friday with an MBA from the University of Chicago and it’s Booth School of Business. It was a long 21-month journey. As I mentioned when I first blogged about it, I would need a lot of help from many along the way. I received that help and much more and to all of you I’ll be forever grateful. Lynne, all I can say is Thank You.

Shown below are just a few pictures from the weekend. I love each of these pictures since they each represent a much larger story. I love the last one, all my stuff in a tote and packed away…….

Daisy: - You were such a great dog

Daisy was such a special dog in so many ways. In almost nine years of blogging, trying to write a few words to honor her memory is literally the hardest post I‘ve ever written. There is no formula for mourning one’s pet, so we do so like they were a loved one.

Daisy was such a loyal friend, a great dog for children and all who came to our house.

I have tried tagging Daisy in my pictures, a fraction are shown below. As you can see, she was with us through so many of our key moments from the last decade. This included being the star of this blog with her cute pink glasses. I’ll leave that up for a week or two before removing it.

Daisy: - You were such a great dog; we will all miss you dearly.

After Some Highs and Lows I'm Back......

Since my last blog post in January we have had a few highs and lows. Honestly with trying to get my course finished I had no energy to take the time to write a few posts each week. This is changing tonight and I look forward to re-engaging.

The obvious high was my MBA graduation on Friday, we all just returned home after a wonderful weekend and I’ll be recounting much more on that over the coming nights this week.

Many of you know that the low we experienced over the last two weeks was that Daisy, our loyal pet for 10 years passed away. She was diagnosed with an aggressive malignant tumor in February and her time had come. It was very very painful and I’ll also devote some blogging time to this week.

So there you have it, keep an eye this week…..

Finally Thawing Out

Let the big thaw begin. We are ready for above freezing conditions tomorrow. Kids went back to School today and both Lynne and myself intend on making it into the office tomorrow. We’re thankful now for plain old cold weather!

Here are my little munchkins today playing in the snow. I also snapped this photo of Connor which ended up being way under exposed, but it worked. He was holding his toy pirate spyglass and the flash filled it to make it look like it actually has glass (of course it's just a plastic tube).

Hanging in there......

We are still in the deep freeze here in West Lafayette. The schools are closed tomorrow for the third day in a row, although Purdue opened its doors today. The interstate connecting us to Indianapolis was closed for much of the time, not sure of its current status. We are pleased that it has actually warmed up considerably; it’s now up to 7F (a cool -13C). Continue to stay warm everybody, won’t be long now until we’ll all be complaining of the heat again! (Don't worry, the picture of the girls below was taken Sunday prior to the deep freeze).

Cool Temperatures

Like many in the US and virtually everybody in the Midwest, we are house bound. It was a cool -14F (-25C) this morning, which rockets to much lower temperatures if you consider the wind-chill factor (-40F reportedly). This is the coldest since we moved to the US over a decade ago. Our poor furnaces are struggling to keep the house warm but at least our power has not been cut. Stay warm everybody. Shown below are a few shots taken today of both the inside and outside.

Happy New Year

A Happy New Year to all out there who read this blog. Thanks to each of you for your friendship and help in 2013. We all look forward to another great year with great friends and colleagues around the world, we certainly wish for continued good health and happiness. See you all in 2014.

Ending the year with our family picture of 2013, taken in April on Anja's birthday, special only because it shows Connor’s shiner so well. Lets hope there is no more of that next year.

Busy Christmas Day

Posted below are a few pictures from Christmas Day. It was a long and busy day for us, but extremely enjoyable. The kids were up at the crack of dawn and we had three additional families for Christmas dinner. We all had a great day, thanks for coming everybody and for all the presents. Looking forward to seeing you all again soon.