January 18, 2001 - April 13, 2009

It is a very sad day at the Schaefer household. Today we had to put down our little man, Rudy. I truly feel like a part of the family is missing. I fell in love with that 80lb pit bull the minute I met him, and if you know anything about me, you know that's pretty miraculous. I hate dogs, but I love and adore my Rudy.

It came pretty unexpectedly. He hadn't been acting like himself since Saturday night. Matt took him into the vet today and called me at the beginning of 7th hour at school (the last class of the day). Luckily, I have a co-teacher that hour, so I was able to leave right away, go pick up Sophie, and head to the animal hospital. On the way there, we talked about our options and agreed, with many tears involved, that it was Rudy's time to go. There wasn't much else we could do...or afford to do. Even if we could keep him alive, it was only a matter of time before he could get worse. I was glad to be able to hold him and sit with him one more time. He had been non-responsive all day, and Matt said that when he heard my voice in the waiting room asking where to find them, he lifted up his head and started wagging his tail. That pooch sure did have a big heart, and man-oh-man was he loyal. We're going to miss him so much.

My Big Brother

Back in February we went to Lawrence for Oskar's 6th birthday. I posted briefly of that visit here, but I promised to show pictures of my brother's house and I have a few more of the birthday boy.

One of his presents had to be hauled on the bed of my brother's truck. Oskar is opening it with Poppy anxiously waiting to find out what he got.

Yep, it's a go-cart. Pretty cool. Oskar LOVES cars and anything with wheels, so he was pretty much in heaven for the rest of the day.

Sophie's cousins sure do love her. I think this picture would be a great ad for Amy's clothing business. They are all wearing her clothes (other than Oskar's jeans.)

Okay, so I don't mean to brag, but...my brother is amazing. He's an architect/carpenter/builder/artist/genius, not to mention a very loving husband, father, and uncle. While we were there, we stopped by the house my brother designed and is building for his family. He has designed and built many other buildings and homes, but all of them were constructed under the needs/wishes of his clients. This is the first time he's been able to really show his own style without constraints (other than financial limits). We got the official tour, and I can't wait to see it when it's finished. He's pretty much designing and building everything by himself (down to making the windows and doors), so it's going to be a while before they can move in. He works on his other projects for clients during the day and goes to the house every night & on the weekends to work on it. (Needless to day he's getting a little burned out, so they're off to Jamaica for a week on Sunday for a much needed family vacation at the beach.) Here are some pictures of his masterpiece!

This is the front of the house. On the right side (behind the bobcat) is the garage, and everything to the left is the living area.

Scott is explaining something cool about the house to my dad & Matt here, but I was taking a picture, so I missed what he said. I'm sure it was pure genius. :)
This is the section of the house you could see in the last picture. (The garage is to the left.) It will be the kitchen & living area. The open spaces to the right are going to be filled with huge windows looking out to their backyard/courtyard.

This is looking from the courtyard into the room (kitchen/living area) from the last picture. To the right is going to be Amy's studio "wing". To the left (which you can see better in the next picture) is all of the bedrooms (there will be 3 of them).

Again, this is from the courtyard looking to the left at the "bedroom wing" of the house.

This was taken from the kitchen/living area towards Amy's studio "wing". That's my dad and behind him will be those huge windows looking out to the courtyard.


A good friend lives next door to the house Scott is building. Scott designed and built their house, too. This is their kitchen. It's pretty representative of my brother's style.

This is the friend's living room area. The house is heated primarily by the wood furnace you see toward the back of the room. The floors are concrete and have radiant heat.

So as we continue to visit and see progress on the house, I'll be sure to post more pictures. My brother has wanted to be an architect since he was six years old. It is SOOO cool to finally see his dreams coming true. I love you, big brother. Go enjoy Jamaica! You deserve it!