The newest Muratore - Cosmo, wonderdog!

After our trip to Arizona, and during our battle with the germs, we adopted a puppy from a rescue group in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was dubbed "Cosmo Fortibras Dog From Beyond," a name which has been duly shortened to Cosmo. He was quite sick when we first adopted him, and there was some question as to whether or not he would make it. He is now a healthy pup, trouble free, currently in the running for the "smartest-bestest-most-beautiful dog ever" award.
He is probably some sort of golden retriever, and he has grown considerably since this picture was taken, going from 8 pounds to 40 pounds in the last 4 months. The big question is, will he be as wonderful as Sparky, Muratore dog of ledgend -- or will he be even better.

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider and had rocks in her socks and got the chickern pox!

Well, Chris did not really swallow a spider, but whatever he did swallow did wiggle and jiggle and tiggle inside him! After we returned from the Grand Canyon, Chris began to become cyclically and progressively ill until he finally ended up in the hospital. As it turned out, he had a parasite. Many missed days of work and vicious medicines later he recovered, only to end up with the chicken pox, which he then proceeded to give to all of the children. (All three boys had been immunized against chicken pox, and two of them got really bad cases. Go figure.) The chicken pox was a big part of this summer, as it keeps you in quarantine for quite some time. However, everyone has finally recovered and Chris has promised that he will not be getting sick again for a long time. We did get to read a lot and watch some Star Wars. Also, thanks to the Valencia's PS2 Star Wars, we can now all have fond memories of pretending to be Obi-Wan, while recovering from the itchies.
Thanks to all of our nice neighbors and friends who tried to find ways to help us pass the time and preserve our sanity during our convalecsence.

Our First Trip to Arizona in Five Years

After our grueling expedition to the Grand Canyon, we high tailed it to Tucson. We stayed at Chris' parents house, but saw a lot of both Chris and Melani's family. We took the kids to The University of Arizona and showed them around our old stomping grounds. There definitely were not so many cell phones there when we were students. We also took the boys to the Arizona Historical Society where the boys had a great time messing about in the mine and trying on old-west-style clothes. They also went to a museum on campus where we saw an exhibit about Mexican Masks which was very interesting. We also went to the Desert Mueum and enjoyed not just the setting (which has a sort of exotic thrill when you have been away from Tucson for a while) but also some really super displays of mineral and animals that are totally foreign to our little guys. They are more used to being on the look out for poison ivy than poisonous snakes. We hiked in Sabino Canyon and enjoyed the river bed (which had water in it, by golly, just for us!) We went swimming and/or walking almost everyday. We went to a climbing party with Melani's family for Miles and Michaela's birthday. Little boys seem very well constructed both mentally and physically for the rigors of climbing up - up - up, though I would have to say that everyone, adults and kids did great that day! We did take one detour into Pheonix to go to Taliesin West (and go to Ikea, of course.) Which was a real treat. We also had a terrific barbeque with everyone at Reid Park. It was a great opportunity to thank our families for hosting us during the week. All in all, we have to say that it was a really fantastic trip.
We'll try and get more and better pictures out soon!