Costa del Sol

Earlier this month we spent a week on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, or as we now like to call it, the Costa da Chuva. Boasting more than 300 days of sun per year, and average rainfall in May of only 20 millimeters, we timed it perfectly wrong. It was chilly and rained 5 out of the 6 days we were there, and we were bookended by weeks of beautiful sunshine and the week after us was downright hot. Luckily the rain was only a portion of each day, and we still managed to do quite a bit of exploring and Amelia didn't mind that when she played in the "dirt" (sand), the sun wasn't shining on her.

We stayed near the small town of Sabinillas, had an easy walk to the beach, and a slightly longer walk into town. We spent much of our first day exploring some of the small and picturesque white Andulusian hill towns (los pueblos blancos), including Casares, Gaucin, and Ronda. Ronda is particularly popular, since it is set high on the hillside and split right down the middle by a high gorge. Amelia wasn't as enthralled by the setting, but she loved the playground in the park at the top of the town, and we loved the cliffside views.

On Tuesday we were off to the city of Jerez, birthplace of Sherry wine and home to the Andulusian Royal School of Equestrian Art. We saw a dressage performance from the schools students' and professors (sorry, no photos allowed), and after letting his horse-crazy girls have their fun, we treated Dan to a sherry tasting, though we agreed that Portugual's port wine has more to offer.

Wednesday we explored some of the local coastal towns, and went for dinner in Gibraltar, which was pretty much a really big rock with a British town and some pubs with bad food at the base, though the biggest disappointment was that the Brits feel the need to lock up their playgrounds at 7 0'clock, so our promises of playtime that evening had to go unkept.

Thursday we took the ferry to Tangiers, Morocco, which if we recollect correctly, was Amelia's first time on a boat (and officially her third continent before her second birthday, although it's sort of like going to Tijuana and saying you've been to Mexico). Since she is just learning some of her transportation words (plane, boat, truck, car, biiiiiig bus) she was pretty excited, and we heard the word "boat" about 200 times that day. We hired a guide to walk us around the city through the markets and the Casbah, had a great Moroccan lunch, and made it through the obligatory shopping sales pitches before taking the ferry back to Spain for the evening.

Friday we finally got some sunshine, and stayed close to home for the day with some pool and beach time. And then Saturday it was time for the long drive home. We stopped in Seville for a nice tapas lunch and took a carriage ride around to see a few of the sights. Now I wish we had planned to stay a few days, as it was a beautiful city, and had a great vibe to it. Amelia was a champion traveler yet again, with over 8 hours in the car each way, and I was quite happy that I got to satisfy my Thai food craving on two separate nights, since we don't have any in Aveiro. So overall, a successful trip that could have been enhanced by a litle more sunshine. For more photos of our trip, click here.

Happy Birthday Alec

What do you say to someone who is not here anymore, but is anything but forgotten? I love you, I miss you, I think of you often, I wonder what it is you would be doing today? For some reason the anniversary of your death in March did not hit me nearly as hard as the anniversary of your life. Today you should be alive. You should be doing all of the things that 24 year olds do, plus so much more. Today I am sorrowful that you are not here to celebrate with me. However,

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for all that has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran

You brought so much delight into my life and into this world with your smile, as big as whatever room you were in. Your ability to not merely accept peoples faults, but instead to find the strengths within everyone. To see and love them as they were, and to not expect them to be different based on any outside expectations. Your wisdom was indeed beyond the short years that you were among us, and I count myself lucky to not only have been your sister, but to have been your friend. Rest well little brother.

Saying Goodbyes

Amelia isn't quite old enough to really understand good-byes yet. Sure she knows to wave and say bye-bye when we leave and she loves to blow kisses, but to actually comprehend good-bye for an extended period is still beyond her. So it is too bad that she has two long-term good-byes this week.

The first is to her friends at Gymboree. We were quite sad when they announced in April that as of May 1 they would be closing. Nuno and Filipa started Gymboree here in Aveiro when Amelia was only 3 months old, and we have been going weekly ever since, so they have been a wonderful presence in her life. While they think that it will likely open again in a few months under new management, we had to say good-bye to Gymbo on Friday not knowing, and Filipa and Nuno are heading back to Lisbon, so it was a sad day.

And tomorrow we are off to Porto to send Scout, aka "New Doggy" off to the US to live with Dan's brother and his family. So a happy ending, but we will miss her quite a bit, as she has been a lot of fun to have around, though we definitely have learned that three dogs is one too many for our family, especially in addition to a cat, a toddler, and a baby on the way.

For those of you that don't know about Scout, we took her in as a temporary guest at the begining of March. I had noticed her for a couple of weeks visiting the school across the street from our house looking for handouts. When I saw her over there one weekend day I felt the need to provide her with a good meal, and of course that is how it always starts.

She was sickeningly skinny, but a real sweetheart, very easy going, friendly, gentle with Amelia, and now very grateful to have a constant source of nourishment and attention. I took her to the vet to check for a microchip and to pick up flea and de-worming medication. Then we found out she was pregnant. Due to her malnourishment, the vet did not think it was wise to allow her to have the puppies, so we decided to have her spayed and let her stay with us while she recovered and we tried to find her a new home. At first she stayed outside, and was very nervous when we tried to coax her to come into the house. Then she started to come in and lie down in a corner where she would collect soft things (Amelia's stuffed animals mostly) and take them to sleep with her. The vet thought they were her surrogate puppies. Now she is one of the family. Going on walks with us, relaxing on the couch, getting Tazzy and Biju (and even Blaze sometimes) running around to play for their daily excercise.

We decided she would be the perfect addition to our family, if only we needed another addition to our family! Since we did not, we found the next best thing, and we are very happy she is going to live with our extended family where we can visit her again in the future. We originally didn't give her a name, since that could only mean she was staying with us, so she was dubbed "New Doggy" for the first few weeks, and got Amelia also referring to "New Tazzy" and "New Da-Da." Once we found New Doggy a family of her own, our niece Isabel named her Scout, and now she is off to live with them in Vermont and enjoy all of the pleasures the Green Mountain state has to offer our four-legged friends.

For some more photos, click here!

First Trip to the ER

Our streak lasted 19 months. That's how long we made it without having to take Amelia to the ER, or even to the doctor except for check-ups. But it came to an end last week when we got to experience the Portuguese socialized medical system first-hand for the first time.

While playing in our backyard she took a tumble off of the 4-inch step from our patio area onto the grass. When I picked her up her mouth was bloody and I couldn't see one of her top front teeth. I thought it was knocked out, but couldn't find it in the grass. As she settled down I saw a little white in her mouth, so then assumed the tooth was broken. Dan left work and met us at the hospital and a nurse saw her right away and gave her some pain medication. After that the waiting game started (a common thing in hospitals, but especially where the care is free). About two hours later a dentist at the hospital looked in her mouth and said that the tooth was actually pushed partway back up into the gum (I didn't know that could happen), and he assumed it was still whole, but he wanted to do an x-ray to make sure. Since the x-ray machine in Aveiro was broken they wanted to send us to the pediatric hospital in Coimbra, an hour away. No problem, but we weren't allowed to drive her there (liability concerns). Instead it was more waiting. An hour later the ambulance was ready to take us. Only one of us was allowed in the ambulance, so Dan had to follow in the car. At the hospital in Coimbra we experienced the Portuguese specialty of "Oh, you have a baby...to the front of the line you go." So we saw a dentist very quickly there and the x-ray showed that the tooth is still whole. They told us they see this in toddlers daily, and it should come back down on its own over the next few months. So lots of trauma but it was okay in the end. Poor Dan had to hold her down for the x-ray while I had to stay outside of the room, due to my pregnancy, listening to her yell "mommy, mommy" as loud as she could. No fun for any of us.

So 7 hours later we made it home and were able to put our exhausted baby to sleep. The next day her upper lip and gums were pretty sore and swollen, but she looks normal now. Well, normal for a professional hockey player since when she smiles there's a tooth missing. She also shakes her head and says "no, no, no" whenever anyone approaches her that she thinks might have any interest in poking around in her mouth. Poor little thing. Anyway it was a happy ending to our first trip to the ER. And I must admit it was nice to simply walk out of the hospital at the end with no need to stop at the cashier's office and have to decide how on earth we'll manage to pay the bill. We spent $0 and zero minutes filling out paperwork which helped ease the trauma of an otherwise difficult day.

Baby Update

Our most important current news is that our next arrival will be a little BROTHER for Amelia. All indications so far are that he is doing well, and we are expecting him to make an appearance around the end of July (my money is on an anniversary baby, July 31).

Amelia is thriving in the spring weather that has finally arrived after a very dreary and wet winter. All I have to do is mention going to play outside or going for a walk and she is at the door collecting her shoes, hat and jacket and ready to go. She loves to go for "nature walks" in the woods by our house, and explores flowers, grass, pinecones, dirt, candy bar wrappers, and anything else she can find. She is also quite the animal lover, and her first request upon getting up from her nap is for Blaze, Tazzy, "new doggy" (more on that later) and Biju. She can make quite a few animal noises on request, and Tazzy, also known as the most tolerant dog ever, has been standing in for a pony on pretty much a daily basis.

Her communication skills are growing daily, but are starting to lead to growing frustrations as well. She knows what she wants, but we're not always able to understand what she's saying, despite our increasing proficiency in yet another foreign language, e.g. an apple is an "osh" and an olive is an "arf". So she gets frustrated until we finally guess right and then everything goes back to normal. Plus while she generally only knows english, she does throw in Portuguese words for us now and again as well, so we get "mais (more in Portuguese) juice."

All in all, we're having fun playing in the sunshine with Amelia and waiting for the next one to arrive, although admittedly with some trepidation. If any of you are willing to offer some advice for coping with a newborn while a 2-year-old is running amok, we'd be grateful.

Dan and I are both working more than we should be for the month of April, so are looking forward to a much deserved family vacation in May, we just have to figure out where we are going!

For a few additional spring time photos, click here.

A Birthday Present?

Happy 33 to me. I'm not really in the mood for celebrating, with Blaze's recent diagnosis and the anniversary of Alec's death approaching. However, through a combination of denile of Blaze actually having GME (it is hard to accept a disease that is diagnosed by exclusion of other possible causes), and wanting to give him the best treatment options possible, I sent his records to a neurologist in Boston who is known as the expert on the disease. His answer? Probably not GME! He has recommended testing for some additional infectious diseases, which if positive are treatable and he can have a full recovery, or, if they are negative, he believes that Blaze has had a stroke, which while he may not ever recover his full neurological function, he shouldn't get worse, and he should be with us for a while still. On his advice, I stopped Blaze's GME medication, and if he does not relapse in the next few weeks he thinks we can safely assume Blaze is in the clear for this one. And that would be something to celebrate!

After showing all of this to Blaze's vet here in Portugal, she asked if she could send all of his records to another neurologist in Bern, Switzerland as well. So no matter what, Blaze seems to have a team of vets in 3 countries spaning 2 continents worried about his well-being, not many dogs can say that.

Blaze

From Dan: It’s been a difficult month of vet visits and sad times. Our beloved first pet together, Blaze, has been diagnosed with GME (granulomatous meningoencephalitis). It is a progressive autoimmune disease of unknown origin. On the morning of February 13 when we woke up he wasn’t quite himself. He had a very low energy level, wasn’t eating, was a bit unsteady on his feet and had lost some vision in his left eye. After lots of tests, including a CT scan and a spinal tap, the vet’s best guess was GME (it’s a diagnosis by process of elimination), although she was not ruling out other causes like a stroke or a brain tumor. Through some connections (that’s still how things work in Portugal) we were able to get him an MRI at a human hospital yesterday. The result was lesions consistent with GME.

We got Blaze, a 7-year-old Australian Shepherd, from a rescue program. His early life in West Virginia included beatings, and those of you who know him know that he still never quite got over that and has forever been skittish around strangers. When Katrin and I first met him he was being fostered in Washington Heights in New York. We took advantage of a trip to the city for Ben and Sohui’s wedding in 2004 to introduce ourselves, and of all the people who had considered adopting him we were told that we were the only ones he even thought about approaching to greet. So after a short walk around the city and some contemplation about taking on a dog with such “issues” we decided that he should move to Burlington.

We’ve had some great years with Blaze. From that first nervous walk around NYC, he became a great pet and even learned to do agility with Katrin. He never became comfortable around strangers, but is extremely loyal and sweet with those he knows. We still hope to have many more years of his trying to do anything he can to please Katrin (and by association, me), but the disease unfortunately has no cure and so we don’t know much about his future. We will keep helping him live the full life he deserves and stay forever hopeful that he will be with us long enough for Amelia to remember him when she grows up.

From Katrin: We are told he will likely be with us less than a year, though it could be much less, and it could be much more, depending on how he reacts and responds to the various treatments. We have put together a team of veterinarians to help us do whatever we can to fight this and give him the best possible life for the time he has left.

I've never been told beforehand that I have a limited amount of time left with a loved one. What a hard place to be, caught somewhere between starting to grieve before they are already gone and savoring every moment you have together. As Dan mentions it has been a rollar coaster of a couple of weeks trying to figure out a diagnosis. Yes he is a dog, but he is a member of our family, and a very special member at that. He will do anything in his power to please and protect those he loves, and even though his energy level is at an all time low right now from the disease and the medications, he still finds it necessary to lift his head and howl every time Amelia cries, and to alert me if I am not quick enough getting up when she wakes up, he still goes crazy when the doorbell rings, and gets excited when Tazzy and Biju start playing, though instead of joining them as usual, he just goes and supervises the play session from near by. As I write this he is curled up on the couch comforting me because I am sad for him.