sad sayonara.

Elsie has had a hard time the last few times we have gone down to visit Stac, Rhen and Chlo. I think that week Stacie spent at home reminded Elsie how much she loves having her mom around every day. Today she was crying as we left because she really wanted to stay with her mom. On the drive home she said, "it would be a lot better if our house was around the corner from the apartment. Then we could just walk home instead of driving for so long. But, our neighbors would have to move their houses down there too, because we like our neighbors."

The weekend was too short, but we're glad Chlo was able to leave the hospital on Saturday and is doing pretty well, other than just feeling junky. We're still unsure where the fever was coming from but hopefully whatever it was will just go away. She always enjoys having Addie and Elsie around, even when she doesn't feel so hot. Everyone is sad when we have to split up again, but that's just the way it goes. It won't be too much longer and we'll be back at home being really noisy and the kids will leave their bikes out in the street for all the neighbors again.

Addie and I played a mean game of chess when we got home. She is pretty good at strategery, but made a careless mistake. I let her win the last couple of times we played but a dad has to keep it challenging or kids will think life is cake all the time. Sometimes it's lumpy, green milk. At least she's had the cake so she knows what to look forward to.

I taught Rhen how to weld over the weekend. He's pretty good, but he has a thing or two to learn. He made this moose to the left. Pretty decent for a 2 month old I guess but I don't think it's his best work. He hasn't really found his niche yet, but he's cranking out some decent stuff.

Rhen keeps making faces and gestures that remind me of Grandpa Passey. He raises up one of his hands to the side and has this look on his face like he's going to say something. Grandpa always raised up his hand and said,
"well..." before he started a story. I think I might float Rhen a few bucks, open an account for him at Etrade, give him a notebook and see if he has Grandpa's genes or not. There is a good chance he does. I don't have a knack for stocks, but maybe that's one of those things like red hair that skips a generation? I don't know if that's really true - about the red hair- just something someone said once. I miss hanging out and talking with Grandpa.


(Rhen didn't actually weld this statue. I'm serious, he really didn't. My comments above were stretchy sarcasm. John Kearney actually welded that and he did a fantastic job. It's in Chicago somewhere. This is a bragadocious thing to say but if Rhen did weld, you can rest assured it'd be something cool. I really like that kid. I'm not kidding).