How did my baby become a pre-schooler!  This can’t be happening… it’s too soon.   I’m thrilled for Lainey but I am so heartbroken at the same time.  Here she is today getting ready to head off to school.  Over the years Lainey has seen me take 1st day of school pictures of Lakyn standing in front of this window seat so that is where she said I had to take her picture too.  And, of course, Vedo had to be in the picture as well.  In the other one she kept clapping while saying “yeah for school!”  We’ll revisit this whole school-thing in about 7 years and see if those are still her sentiments.

Lose Your Seat.  Well in this case it’s my side of the bed.  We have a not-so-little problem in our marital bed and his name is Vedo!   Every-night (like clockwork) I wake up and have to go pee… apparently I have unresolved issues from potty training or I just drink too many adult beverages… who knows.  The point here is that our Great Dane, Vedo, slithers into my spot in bed, complete with stealing my pillows and comforter, during the 2 minutes I am in the bathroom!  The most annoying part is that somehow in that short amount of time, he manages to fall into a deep sleep rendering him dead weight for me to try and move… he weighs 140 pounds too.   One night I was so frustrated, I grabbed my camera for proof of his conniving pillow thievery.

Vedo the Pillow Hog

Most Behaved Griswold

We have a new addition to the family. Edward is definitely the most behaved Griswold. He is quiet, has a funny personality and a go-with-the-flow attitude. Lakyn named Edward after the character in Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” book series. Edward stays in Lainey’s room and does not ’squeal’ at night like some guinea pigs do… he actually ‘purrs’ which is such a sweet sound. But by far the funniest thing he does is bite our Great Dane, Vedo! Yes, I’m serious. If you know Vedo you know he is a bully so the fact that every time he sticks his big nose in Edward’s cage and growls at him, Edward puts his little feet up on the rail of his cage, reaches through and bites Vedo’s lip cracks me up. The best part is that it seems to shock the crap out of Vedo EVERY TIME Edward bites him… I love it! And Lainey thinks its so funny that she sticks her finger in his cage and says “Bite Me Edward!” Over and Over and Over, “Bite Me Edward, Bite Me.” tee, hee, hee. I’m amused by the dumbest things. FYI, Edward doesn’t bite Lainey.

(By the way… our other 2 Great Danes are so laid-back/lazy that they don’t even notice if Edward climbs on their bodies… it’s quite amazing.)

 Grandma Dedi got Lainey an indoor/outdoor pop-up playhouse that is the size of an apartment!   We put it up in our family room (temporarily) just to see if she’d like it and found out that all 3 of our Great Danes liked it as much as Lainey.  It’s so big that it has 2 rooms and comes with furniture.  It also has an opening for us to attach Lainey’s crawl- thru tunnel, but we couldn’t even get it in our family room if we attached the tunnel (and our family room is pretty big), so we’ll have to wait until we put it outside in the Spring to add that piece.  Here is a picture of Vedo (our tallest Dane) in the playhouse with Lainey this morning as she had her morning coffee (actually warm milk, but she doesn’t know).  Keep in mind that Vedo is only 3.5 inches shorter than the World’s Tallest Dog and he has plenty of room in there.  The second picture is before we let Vedo inside and he kept peeking in at us through the window.  He looked like Dogzilla stalking us.  

So first things first, we should probably explain our title. There would be no blog of our family – or our family at all – if it was not for Clark W. Griswold. That’s right, the Patriarch of the family featured in “Christmas Vacation” and other Vacation movies gave Jay and me so many one-liners that we fell in love… with each other. You see, Jay and I had many things in common but it was giggling over those stupid one-liners that really brought us together. Some couples have romantic stories of how they met…. we have Clark and cousin Eddie.

Every day after Thanksgiving we put up our family Christmas Tree while watching “Christmas Vacation.” Ironically, last year as we were putting up the tree (and Jay got somewhat stuck under it) the exact same scene was on TV… little full, lotta sap! Luckily I always have my camera near-by…

It wouldn’t be the holiday shopping season if the stores were any hooter-hotter than they are… here is Clark W. Griswold shopping for something ’special.’

Another thing to know about us is that we are crazy about our Great Danes. We now have 3 even though we vowed only to have 2 (you can never have just one). We just adopted Duke from a friend who was unable to keep him so he has moved right in as if he was always meant to be with us and even attemped to take over Vedo’s “Alpha Male status” to no avail.  Maximus meanwhile continues to be our “old man.”