The Coolest Family North of Chicago

Last night was a lot of fun and I'm glad I endured nearly three hours of rush hour traffic for it. I love going to Jimmy's house. His mom and dad have adopted all of the friends of their kids and they treat us like a part of the family. Jimmy's mom practically lives in the kitchen cooking or doing laundry. She actually scolded me for not bringing my laundry with me last night for her to do. This family is more Catholic than my family and they never eat meat on Fridays so last night for dinner, after me and Baxter had arrived, we all had huge bowls of this vegetable stew with cornbread. All homemade and all mouth-watering. Due to his chemo, Oliver is losing his hair and is wearing a cap constantly, he's losing weight and for some reason, just the smell of certain foods can make him throw up. Therefore the stew was without onions last night. But that's just fine with me. I'm not the biggest fan on onions either.

Oliver, Jimmy, Montgomery and I stayed up watching movies and since Patrick, the youngest brother, has a Wii, we all played some tennis. Afterwards, we fell asleep on the floor in the living room, the usual place we all sleep when we're over. Jimmy and Oliver's dad is a huge dog person and over the years, has adopted four from the local animal shelter: Horatio, Napoleon, Potato and Hugo. Baxter was a bit scared and confused with his new surroundings but he did run around the yard with the dogs, chasing or being chased. I thought he would sleep through the night from sheer exhaustion.

First, he pooed in the hallway. I was so embarrassed, apologizing over and over, but they only laughed and reminded me that they had four dogs. They had had poo in the house before. Baxter never settled down. He woke me up nearly every hour, crying and wanting to go out. I'm exhausted and even though I call him a brat, I'm not mad or upset. He's a puppy and he didn't know where he was. The next morning, something very strange happened. No breakfast was made for us because Jimmy and Oliver's mom had signed up for art classes and they met early on Saturday mornings. So with some toast in my stomach and some horrible morning cartoons courtesy of J.J., Jimmy and Oliver's nephew, me and Baxter headed back home. It only took us about an hour this time and ever since we got back, Baxter hasn't let me out of his sight. He is sleeping a bit though now. I think he can only handle one dog at a time, like Max.