The Other Members of Our Family

K and I refer to him as our oldest child. He is one of M's best buddies. Sampson is the yellow lab below whom we all absolutely adore.

This 11 1/2 year old "puppy" still greets us each morning as if we are the royal family and he our butler. His goal in life is to please us. His unbounded love for us is evident in every one of his waking moments. Although he is the "senior citizen" of the family (I believe he may be on more meds than my 85 year old grandfather.), he will still play fetch for as long as we allow, or until his arthritic legs have had enough. Below is a letter written last October to Sampson by M (hence, the abundance of exclamation marks) on his 11th birthday.

Dear Sampson,

Happy Birthday Sampson! We love you! We cannot believe you are 11 years old! You are older than me M! Man you would be 77 years old if you were a person rite now! We hope you can stay a lot more years after C is born! We love you so much!

Love,

Mom, Dad and M

Below, according to M and M only, is another member of our family, Fluffy.

M received Fluffy on her 6th birthday. Although K refers to this hamster as "that rat," I, actually, have grown to love her as well. Yes, she basically eats, poops, and sleeps, but she is a cute and cuddly little thing.

Here, you can see clearly that Sampson's opinion of Fluffy is similar to K's. If K had been in the room at this point, he probably would have commanded "sick 'em, Sampson," and Fluffy would have been history.