It's Gonna Be A Hot One!

This Spring we have enjoyed cooler than normal tempertures. All that seems to be coming to an end. It was a good run. Pack lightly if you're coming to visit!
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A week barely worth mentioning......

Tom has been gone 9 days now and let's just say that we have all missed him terribly. My poor mom came out for a visit to help us out, but it turns out that, quite frankly, we were beyond help! To sum it up the week consisted of a lot of driving all over the south, long and sleepless nights with a dog who has horrible diarrhea (self-induced, might I add --- eating an entire bag of dental chews -- including the bag, is not recommended), a terrible spill in the neighbor's driveway chasing after the dog which resulted in a quick trip to the ER for x-rays for me (everything is fine), Muzzy "clotheslining" Marin with her leash on the driveway which resulted in Marin having a huge bump on the back of her head and a red "ligature" like mark on her neck (after a good cry Marin is totally fine and still eager to give Muzzy lots of kisses --aahhhh, kids and forgiveness) and oh, did I mention the dog's diarrhea --- yes, it persists, but she is now on some good medication. You know, I was kind of feeling sorry for us and then I found a few minutes to sit down and read some friend's blogs and well, everything came into perspective. When you have a chance (and a full box of Kleenex readily available), click on The Wilkening Web link to the right and read their Cancer Blog from start to finish. You will be so inspired by little Eli and his fight with leukemia and blown away by his parent's ability to so beautifully articulate in writing what they all are going through. Please keep them all in your prayers.

PS: Thank you Gramma Mac for your help and everybody, please don't let us forget to have a fence installed before Tom's next trip! :)

PPS: Does anybody want a 6 month old Goldendoodle? She's very cute and EXTREMELY well-behaved ;) Just kidding.

USS John C. Stennis

While Tracey, Marin, Calvin and Muzzy have been suffering through the ides of May, I've been aboard the carrier off the coast of San Diego. Here's a photo of me "waving" aboard a T-45 Goshawk for a student's first ever landing at the boat. I'm now back in San Diego and figuring out how to make this our home again.
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Golf at Dancing Rabbit

On a nice, lazy Sunday afternoon, Greg and I played the Oaks at Dancing Rabbit. The whole family had been in Choctaw, MS this past weekend for the Ball and to get out of town, if only for a couple of days.
The round was close the whole way until Greg narrowly nipped me by 17 strokes to finish with an 85. On this hole, we both nabbed pars and for the moment I felt worthy of playing on a course much beeter than my game.
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Fun at the Hotel Pool

Marin's favorite so far has been the "hot, hot" pool. So we're here enjoying the sun (storms moved through in the night) and laughing about the crazy night.
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Goshawk Ball

We're at the Goshawk Ball! Marin is with Aunt Sara and Uncle Greg. It's fun so far.
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Muzzy's new 'doo!

Here is a quick shot of Muzzy and her new hairdo. Muzzy likes it so much that she ate through part of the wall to celebrate.
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Nice Thursday Morning

Go Jayhawks!

We've officially gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over the Jayhawks' National Title run. Marin is in the act as she predicted both the Memphis win over UCLA and the Jayhawks sound trouncing of the Tarheels. Rock Chalk!

Disney Video Part I

Gift from Uncle Kevin

Hamming It Up

Boring!

I suppose this will be a less than stellar post. I have no video, no pictures and at this point no idea what is going to roll off my finger tips into this blank box. Nothing is going on. Tracey has returned from her business trip to Austin, TX. Marin and Daddo survived. Marin missed her mom dearly, but managed to stick to her routines and continue to dazzle us with her latest "tricks." The whole thing would have been impossible without Grandma Mac's arrival last Saturday. She's been so busy that we (Tracey and I) are afraid that she may never want to return. She primarily played with Marin, and tended to Muzzy, and cooked meals, and baked cookies (and biscotti!), and cleaned the kitchen, and sent letters...It has been wonderful.
Since her return (and even while she was gone), Tracey has been feeling ill and again, simply running the house would have been impossible without Grandma Mac. Sadly, we are dropping her off at the Jackson airport this afternoon.
Ah yes, Marin's latest tricks:

counting to ten, as long as you say every other number

Understanding weather...lately we've heard, "Rain. Wet" and "Sun. Bright"

Walking around picking things off the floor and telling us who it belongs to...inevitably "Daddo's!?"

Walking right up to Muzzy for a kiss, or as we call them a "Muhh" (the exaggerated sound of a kiss)

Asking for songs by name. Okay she only asks for the below video and song.

Enjoy and just try to get it out of your head!

A Little Chaos

We have invited chaos into our household and well......it looks like she's decided to make us her permanent family. She has materialized (and when I say "materialized" I mean that we researched ad nauseam, paid good money for her and drove 8 hours roundtrip to pick her up and bring her back with us) as a gorgeous and fluffy ball of sweetness and we call her Muzzy Blue. She is an 8 week old puppy. Tom likes to tell people that we "rescued her from a breeder." Marin already loves her tiny and furry sister. It is so much fun to watch the two of them chase each other around. It's also eye opening to watch Marin react to seeing another being receive so much affection from her parents. Surprisingly she seems to be just fine with that -- it's Muzzy's crate that has her in a fit at least twice a day. She is SOO jealous that Muzzy has her own little cage that she can crawl in and out of. We're beginning to think that really the best Christmas present Santa could have brought for her would have been her own personal cardboard box!? What a lunatic.
We are facing a few challenges right now (potty and crate training) and I'm sure we're in store for a few more down the road, but we think Muzzy is well worth it. I commented to Tom earlier today that it's kind of like we have two toddlers right now -- one who gets to wear diapers and one who doesn't. Seriously, I hope I don't offend anybody when I say this, but I cannot imagine what life is like for those parents who potty train their infants from day one by not using diapers at all -- have you heard about this? I call it crazy. If it were feasible and reasonable to put a puppy in diapers, I would do it. Anyhow, while we do have moments of craziness in our house these days, it's really just lots of fun (minus the middle of the night potty breaks in single digit temps with an inch of snow on the ground -- but Tom did all of that last night, so what am I complaining about? -- actually it was pretty tortuous when he, in the form of a popsicle, climbed back in bed and nearly froze me right out.....)! Yes, I am thrilled that Tom is willing to do the midnight potty breaks and he certainly has won over Muzzy by doing so ---- SHE LOVES HIM!! It is adorable. She follows him around like, well, a little lost puppy dog. Two gentle souls. Cal on the other hand...........let's just say that Muzzy is really putting the "gentleness" of his soul to the test.

Barnyard Time in the Backyard

Drink Up

PS Tune into Oprah on Monday and you may catch a glimpse of Tracey cheering for Mississippians to lose some weight. Oprah visited Meridian on Friday to kick off her Best Life Weight Loss Challenge and Tracey was in the crowd.

We're Happy 'Cause We're Gettin' a Puppy!

The most exciting gift that we received from Santa this year undoubtedly was a golden doodle puppy. Since we don't have the puppy yet, it has meant a lot of time looking at photos from the breeder. Marin now believes the sole purpose of a computer is to look at pictures of puppies. She scrambles over to whomever is sitting in front of the screen and exclaims,  "Buppy" and will not relent until her demand is met. So much for being tough parents.
We are picking up the "Buppy" in two weeks and could not be more excited. Once we do have our little Muzzy (the name we've decided on) we'll be flooding you with pictures.  Until then, enjoy these few from the breeder.

PS Muzzy is a tribute to one of our favorite characters, played by Carol Channing, in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Spirit of Christmas

Who's Ready for Christmas

Dad's Gift to Us

December 2nd will always be special to me. It is Dad's birthday and in 2007, it represents number 70. Mom's party in Utica (celebrating her 70th) was incredible and I think it was probably the only gift mom ever wants: her children to be together and happy (also, she may have liked that we were forced to share a cabin among the 30 of us, but that's beside the point). Since we were all so young when Dad died in 1995 (yes, even mom was young!), it forces me to wonder what life would be like with him. And it is sometimes fun and sometimes sad to do just that. More recently, however, I have been thinking about what my life is like because of him.
I've had this stuck in my head for a while and it may come across "preachy" and self-righteous, but my point is to honor Dad and it is his birthday after all.
Dad's life and the life lessons that he taught can best be understood by knowing that his purpose in life was to be happy, healthy and holy.
For Cronley's, being happy has never been a result of something. I think about growing up in a household that some would describe as mass chaos, and some would describe as beautiful. Our happiness has always been a decision each day. Dad's example of the difficulty of the car business (understatement of the century), to resisting the temptation to change locations, to working for someone less qualified than himself, to the pressure of being the sole financial provider had to be hard. And yet, each morning it was off to work as if it was his first day on the job. Happiness is never a guarantee or a goal, but a decision dad made each day and I think on the whole, we are pretty good at this still today.
To be healthy is something we all want. You feel good when you are hitting the gym, or running trails and to be sure, it is our responsibility to do this. Now Dad couldn't keep up with me on a run (let alone Joe or John), and he would get wooped by Pete Goethals in tennis, so it's pretty safe to say that each of the girls would trounce him on the court as well. But Dad knew about relationship health better than anyone else I've met to date. People knew where they stood with Dad because they knew Dad. There was no question about his intentions and he never schemed. What you see is what you get. If Dad told you he was hurt, you knew you had hurt him. When he forgave you, you knew he had forgiven you. Relationships are much more resilient and stable when their backdrop is of this honest and undisguised example that Dad provided. I hope that, without his living example, we too can reach his level of relationship mastery that could prevent the unfortunate strife common to aging families.
Ah, holiness. Now I specifically remember Dad trimming his finger nails during a homily and I'd bet he would be hard-pressed to wax intelligent on the pope's latest encyclicals. That being said, among the billions of people to walk this earth, there is only one Jesus and only 12 apostles and yet a passerby eclipsed the cowardliness of the those same apostles when Jesus needed help to carry the cross. My point is we may not all be called to extreme, life-changing religious callings, but like Simon (the passerby), we are all called to be ready. Dad's honesty and integrity as a man, meant that he was ready.
So there they are--Dad's gifts. None of them were given in a vacuum, but rather in a life of struggle and hardship, joy and excitement. Let's not forget them. Let's enhance them and honor Dad through them.