For the one or two regular readers, who are actually just family members and a phone call away, I'm sorry for the long layoff. I had stuff to talk about, but just needed a sabbatical from the blog. Not like it's an especially onerous task to whip up a few posts a week that feature mostly pictures and videos of my kids doing cute things, but for whatever reason I just didn't have the motivation to follow through with it. We are back now, with a back log of stuff to write about, and I think the wife is going to be helping with a few more of these posts from time to time. She is the boots on the ground so to speak, being home with the dynamic duo of Jackie and Catherine most of the time, so expect her to dash off a quick post now and again whenever they do anything fun.