Babies' First Christmas!

Annie and Grace celebrated their first Christmas - with all the trimmings! What they won't remember from the 2008 holiday season has been recorded and photographed for their future enjoyment!








Mom and Dad, tireless parents, were still smiling at the end of the day!






...and a Happy New Year to all!

Let it snow!

The McKies are enjoying a full blown Minnesota winter in Rochester!









Blue is practicing with his "indoor" voice and behavior; Mary and Saba are snuggling in for a warm winter hug.


Paul is celebrating the completion of his internal medicine residency...and looking forward to two years of cardiac research and regular hours! In the spring, they'll be first time parents...and have been practicing with their twin nieces, Annie & Grace! Congratulations, Mary and Paul!

One Month Old!

Check out the Spreigl Family!

Diapers, Midnight Feedings, Occasional Shrieks....Healthy Babies and Happy Parents! We love them all!

Grandpa helps out?

Twelve months in a year, twelve numbers on a clock, twelve days of Christmas, twelve stitches in his forehead! Grandpa tried to help Annie & Grace visit their doctor for a new baby weight check...and ended up in the ER himself!



Those car doors are sharp instruments....the good news is that Annie and Grace have almost cracked the 7 pound mark. Grace weighed in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces, while Annie weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces.

Thanksgiving Day with the Robfam

Rebecca, Manuel,Annie and Grace found Thanksgiving Day a little exhausting! The girls were two weeks old, and their parents have found their nights and days completely turned upside down! Mary & Paul arrived from Rochester to join in Thanksgiving celebrations...Paul after working all night and Mary after enjoying a day off before returning to tend to the animals. We all took turns with the babies;






in fact, conversation at the dinner table sounded a little like this..."Please pass the cranberries; please pass a baby!"

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family!

C'mon, Bert! Circle 'em!

June 27th...a big day for the Robfam. Birthdays, Paul and Brenda; Baseball, Minnesota Twins against the Milwaukee Brewers; and Bonus! The Spreigl twin girls, due to be born in late November, made their first visit to the Metrodome!

We watched, waited and hoped that Bert Blyleven, the television announcer, would notice and circle Rebecca and Manuel! No such luck...this time! But, the baseball season is only half over...there's still time! Watch those Twins...and get ready to spot our TWINS!

Congratulations to Dr. Mary!

It was a proud day for the Robfam on May 3rd, when our daughter, Mary McKie, graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Veterinary Medicine. We were all on hand to hear her deliver the student response speech, watch her collect her degree, and celebrate with her classmates, friends and family.

Mary and Paul now live in Rochester, Minnesota, where Mary will begin to care for small animals in June, and where Paul is completing his second of seven years as a resident at the Mayo Clinic.

We're proud of our PAIR-A-DOCS!

Grandpa Hears the Big News!

Multiple Choice Quiz

A) Is he smiling?
B) Is he weeping?
C) Is he laughing?
D) All of the above

You guessed it! The correct answer is D) All of the above!! Rebecca and Manuel have just announced that they will be parents of TWINS in early December! The word is that Manuel's cheers and hoots could be heard throughout the clinic when the news was delivered! They are thrilled, as are Grandpa and Grandma.

Ya Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em!

,
The boys from AHP call it the Men's Garden Club,












the Macalester guys call it the Probability Seminar

























and the members of the NumberOne SaddleBrooke Ladies' Adventure Club call it Kathleen's Texas Hold 'Em Lessons! After conducting a hands-on learning session at the Robertson dining room table, the Adventure Club women headed on down to the Lariat for a Vaquero Burger and a chance to watch Kathleen clean out the locals at the Lariat poker table!



Just this week, Kathleen was the poker champion at the Lariat...and promises to continue teaching us the tricks of the game. Next lesson, we might even play for pennies!

A Robfam Christmas Card!

So, it's a little late! Here in SaddleBrooke, we tried to help Manuel, our new son in law, polish up his Norwegian heritage! Though we skipped the lutefisk, the lefse was a huge success.














Another successful event over the holidays was the debut of the 4th annual family Greatest Hits CD. This year's CD, featuring a record 12 family members, achieved new heights. Not only was this our first 2 disk set, Paul and Susan actually kicked it up a notch by including music performed by Yo Yo Ma and The Opera Babes! Once again, Rebecca created the title and cover design, and she assisted Manuel in mixing and producing the CE.







According to tradition, the CD was released for the first time at Christmas dinner, though we were missing 4 members of our family. Nick and Amy, our newlyweds, spent their first Christmas together in Minnesota, while Mary and Paul managed a whirlwind cycle of selling their house, making an offer on a new house, moving, finishing up school and work, while packing for a month long medical roation in India!


We missed them all at Christmas, and waited eagerly for emails from India to hear about their adventures. The good news is....they managed the transition to a very unique culture, they worked hard in their medical fields and they returned happily and safely!

Now, we all wish our readers a Merry Christmas and a peaceful, healthful and happy 2008!

What's a Twins fan to do?

Baseball season is several months away; it's freezing cold in Minnesota and it's cool and rainy in Arizona. Besides that, Torii Hunter has left the Twins, and we're pretty sure that Santana will be next to leave. Spring signifies HOPE however, and we look forward to another season of great play by our M & M favorites, Morneau and Mauer.

In the meantime here in AZ, the Mackenzies have made Patriots fans out of us! We shouldn't have been surprised; Rebecca and Manuel took an early December trip to visit friends in Boston - good friends, who came up with Patriots tickets for them! They came home with tales of glee...tailgating with the best of them, then watching the Patriots add one more win to their undefeated 2007-2008 record. When we met up with Doug and Nancy Mackenzie in AZ, Patriot fever took on a whole new meaning. Never mind the old joke about Boston being God's Country (providing a direct phone line to heaven, based on the Patriots and the Red Sox}, as we watched the December and January games, the Robfam was carefully monitoring Doug's blood pressure as he helped the Patriots to win after win. This week, we've spotted Tom Brady wearing a boot and limping a little during practice. Now we're heading into Super Bowl weekend; Doug tells us that he'll be watching from Phoenix while visiting an old friend there, but we think he's really checking into the Phoenix branch of the Mayo Clinic, just in case it's a close game!

After the Australian Open, and anticipating the end of the NFL season, I have turned all my energy again to the Arizona Wildcats' basketball team. Last season, I watched Mustafa Shakur and Ivan Radinovich play their hearts out and end the season with dismay. I almost blamed myself...after years of following Polar bball with moderate success, after several years of cheering for MN Gophers bball, only to be disappointed by the problems during the Haskins tenure, I decided to try again to be a fan. I bought a beautiful red Wildcats T shirt last year, and the team immediately went into the tank! This year started out the same way...Lute, the King Coach, disappeared for personal reasons, the Wildcats dropped out of the top 25 teams in the country, and key players were plagued with injuries which kept them off the court. But...HOPE springs eternal! During the Christmas Fiesta Bowl tourney, Dick and I, Rebecca and Manuel scored some FREE tickets and spent a wild afternoon in the McHale Center watching my CATS win! After a brief decline, they're winning again! It might not be too late to save the season, and if you follow the sports page, you'll notice the amazing upsets of the past two weeks! Now I'm going to invite you to join the fan club. Watch these players: Bayless, Hill, Wise, McClellan and Budinger. There are others too, but those are my current favorites.

Now, here's the interactive part of my blog: Go online to Arizona basketball or AZ Star newspaper, look at pictures of the team members. Then, you tell me....Chase Budinger is the spittin' image of which famous character from history/art/music/films? The first person to respond with the right answer, excluding immediate family members, will win a latte at Starbucks or Caribou...your call!

No sooner will we dispatch the NCAA tournament, but opening day of the Twins will be here! Go Twins!

Retired 622 Teachers Trade in the Grade Books for Great Books!

Thirteen dedicated women, each of whom devoted more than 30 years (according to my math, that's a minimum of 390 years) to the students and families of ISD 622, have graduated! Though several of them return to school as substitute teachers, and several others volunteer their time as tutors for students who are learning to speak English, and though there is still one (the youngest) who has a few more courses to teach before she can collect her diploma (and her pension), they've found that the rewards of retirement are spectacular.

Meeting monthly to talk about books, sample fabulous food, and catch up on traveling adventures, family events, and school rumors, the happy teachers have discovered not only the joy of finishing the race, but also the bond of shared lives that come from working side by side for 30+ years.


If you listen, you'll hear stories of crazy antics performed by students, wild escapades of otherwise mild-mannered educators, shoulder-to-shoulder stand offs which pitted colleagues against colleagues, or more often against administrators! You'll hear lots of laughter and the occasional sigh, as the memories of the old stories come back to life. You might not hear, but you'd certainly sense the underlying conversations of the other stories...stories that span 30 years of friendship: the challenges of children, marriage, and elderly parents, the demands of a high energy career, and the struggles of maintaining good health in the face of aging (slightly).

And so we meet to talk about books. Beginning our third year, we've read everything from The Kite Runner and The Devil in the White City to The Memory Keeper's Daughter and The Glass Castle. We assume our roles as discussion leaders and participants; we play school and ask each other questions.





In December we exchanged Christmas ornaments, and Joan and Sue made a game out of the exchange.

We're planning a field trip to Chicago in June. I suppose we'll have to look for chaperones and hire a bus!

Blogger Block Begins to Abate!

It's not as if nothing interesting has happened in the last two months; it's not as if the Robfam has gone underground or has been afflicted with word flu. A form of the writers' strike, Blogger's Block has reigned here in Arizona, while I've been hiking, reading, quilting, and enjoying the desert sun. With firm resolve and two months of new material...I'm back at the desk. Chipping away at the old block, I'm digging up stories on the 622 Book Club, the Arizona Wildcats Basketball team, The Robfam, Krueger, McKie and Spreigl 4th annual Christmas CD, the invasion of the Bethel Boys of '68, the celebration of a new SS recipient, and the Number One SaddleBrooke Ladies' Adventure Club. Stay tuned...I'm determined to tell those stories, revealing not only the details, but proof in pictures as well. Thanks, dear readers, for your patience during the writers' strike at the Robertson Family News!