Happy Birthday, Mikey

Today is Mikey's 42nd Birthday. Maelie and I have wrapped his presents, and hopefully we'll have photos later tonite of the wonderful gifts Maelie picked out for him. :) For now, though, Maelie and I have put our heads together to see if we can list 42 things about Daddy that we love...

1. He changes dirty diapers

2. He's a great cook

3. He loves Maelie with all his heart

4. He does his best to protect Maelie, and keep her safe

5. He takes care of Maelie on weekend mornings so Mommy can sleep in

6. He is very intelligent

7. He has an unusual sense of humor

8. You can be yourself around him

9. He has all his teeth

10. He works hard so Maelie can have everything, and so Mommy doesn't have to work

11. He does countless little favors for me all the time

12. He plays firetrucks with Maelie

13. He will never grumble about taking a family trip to the park, for a drive, etc.

14. He scritches my back every night before bed

15. He always helps me with Maelie's bathtime, bedtime, etc.

16. He gets up with Maelie when she wakes up at night

17. He will take time off from work, when he can, to help me take Maelie to the pediatrician

18. He does laundry

19. When he loves, he loves hard

20. He always makes sure I have soda pop

21. He tries to make sure my vehicle has fuel

22. He goes grocery shopping

23. He loves to learn

24. He loves to eat and isn't picky about food

25. He loves to rest and relax

26. He can handle emergencies extremely well

27. He's quick to help others, even if he grumbles about it

28. He cries over Maelie's children's books about Daddies

29. He makes sure the house is well stocked with necessary batteries

30. Every Sunday he takes Maelie shopping and visiting

31. He generally lets me have my way

32. He has big brown eyes

33. He has big strong arms

34. He loves his mother-in-law

35. He's not afraid to play like a kid, even in public

36. He's never phony

37. He's very protective of his family and close friends

38. If I were to ask him to run out and buy me a candy bar at midnight, he would, no matter what

39. He's great at fixing computer issues

40. He's dedicated to his job

41. He owns his own fire truck

42. He's generous

We could keep on going, for there are lots of reasons why we love Mikey. But for now, Maelie and I will just wish Daddy a very happy birthday!!!!

Daddy Welcome

Last night, as we were outside playing on the sidewalk again (our new fave), Daddy came home from work. Someone was quite excited to see him!!!!

Puppy Welcome

Tonight, we went out to dinner with some good friends who were up visiting the area, and Maelie did nothing but run in circles around and around the restaurant. Good thing it was a small Chinese restaurant, and we're well-known there!! Since she's been having such a good time running and walking, we let her run on our sidewalk when we got home, instead of straight to bed, and let the puppies out. She got QUITE the welcome from her number one Yorkie friend, Allegra. :)

The Trees

In the weird, ironic world that is my life, I had a strange experience with trees yesterday. First, in perhaps an omen, on facebook, I took a silly little quiz that said my name should be 'Tree.' Okay...whoopie deal, right?? Then, last night when we got the mail, I had a wonderful surprise from my dear friend Karey and her family. They sent to us a beautiful pine tree sapling with an engraved name plate that says "In Memory of Grandpa Sully." It was just lovely, and made me tear up. Thank you again, Karey.

So, in looking at the beautiful tree, I'm thinking to myself, hmm....we should leave it to grow in the container, because I wasn't sure where the best place to put it would be. And, we still will probably do that for awhile, anyway...until it grows too big.

BUT....right after I opened it up, and was busy writing a thank you email, Mike goes to let the dogs out. He comes, and tells me, "Don't freak out." I'm thinking...what, our ceiling fell in again!?!? It was really windy outside and raining. He tells me that part of my favorite tree in our yard fell over. Huh. So, I'm still typing, thinking, okay, we lost a branch. Yeah. No. A whole portion of the tree was in our yard, down. The strange thing is, it couldn't have fallen in a better way. It was totally just in the yard, didn't hit the garage, our fence, the house, the steps, nothing. It was as if it was guided to the right spot. (Thank you, Sully.)

Today, in the daylight, we saw that another large trunk of the tree was broken, too, and resting gently on the garage. So, the whole tree had to be removed. Sigh. My favorite tree. It was a flowering apple tree, so in the Spring, we had these gorgeous flowers and the yard would be pink with petals when they fell off. And, it also blocked the view of our yard from a taller business building across the alley. Bummer.

But, I think we now know the ideal spot for the Grandpa Sully tree!! Irony, or what?!?!?

Celebration of a Life

Yesterday, we all gathered together to celebrate the life of my father-in-law, Mike Zadra, Sr. (Sully), and share our memories. It was so nice to be able to spend time with family, to honor this wonderful man, to cry, to laugh, to remember. You never know how many people will come, but the funeral home was packed. That was so nice to see. And I was so touched that many of Mikey's friends were there, co-workers of his, my brother, his wife and my niece, and my sister, her husband, and my nephew. It was no surprise that my sister would be there...but, it is such a comfort to have had my family there, too.

Maelie stayed with my mom during the service, and then we brought her to the luncheon afterwards. She was quite overwhelmed by the number of people who all knew her, but she didn't have a clue! We didn't stay too long, because of her understandable fussiness, and it was her naptime. Mike, Maelie and I all eneded up taking a much needed nap in the afternoon, and then went out to the house afterwards for more family time, food, drinks. It was good to relax and talk with everyone.

I was asked by my mother-in-law to give a eulogy for my father-in-law. I've decided to share it here, so you all can know even a little bit more about Sully. I thank you all so much for your support and love during this trying time. It has meant so much, more than I can describe.




Sully, as I will always know Mike Sr., was much more to me than the term Father in law can describe. I had known him for years before Mikey and I even started dating, having met him through my sister, Kim Grippe, when they worked at RMS together for many, many years. I would often go to visit my sister at work, and the three of us would sometimes go to lunch together, he’d tease me, kid me – memories of those early days will always be with me.

And then I started dating Mikey. I remember an early date of ours, when I went to their house, and of course, feeling nervous about meeting the ‘potential’ in-laws. When I got there, Sully was doing his usual bustling around the kitchen, pots bubbling away on the stove, cigarette hanging out of his mouth…He looked at me and asked, “So, you get a job yet?” Well, that did it…the ice was broken and I knew I didn’t have to be nervous or worry about being accepted.

Sully was like that. He accepted everyone. No matter who you were, Sully made you feel welcome, whether if it was through a joke, his toothless grin, his cooking….he made you feel comfortable. There were no pretenses with him.

Many of you know that Mikey and I adopted a baby from Vietnam this past October…Maelie. The first time we brought her to meet the grandparents, I didn’t even get a chance to get her sweater off before Grandpa Sully came over to see her. I will forever cry when I remember that moment. He took one look at her, and with tears in his eyes and a wavering voice he said, “She’s so beautiful.” I knew, right then and there, that it didn’t matter that Maelie hadn’t been born to us. She was accepted…she was a Zadra, and always would be. She was his granddaughter. And I am so glad and grateful they had the time they did together.

When Carol asked me to say a little something about Sully, I was very touched. And I wondered what I could say. Not that I was at a loss of things to say, but there’s just so much about this wonderful man, that I could go on and on. Memories flooded in like snapshots…memories that I hope to never lose, so that I can treasure them always, and pass them on to Maelie so she will forever know the kind of man her Grandpa Sully was.


- His generosity and kind heart, picking up a stray animal, all the while grumbling about it.

- The way he always, without fail, made me his famous shrimp scampi when we’d come over for dinner, because he knew I loved it. And speaking of food, we will all remember his wonderful potica.

- His fashion sense of a flannel shirt over another flannel shirt, pared with a bungy cord belt, topped off with a ball cap.

- The way he’d say, ‘Hey, Boob,’ (instead of Boo Boo), when I walked in the door…much to Carol’s chagrin.

- His wonderful woodworking projects that I will always treasure, and how, when he made them, he’d never just go buy lumber, but spend days gluing together scrap wood and lumber, like an old picnic table, packing crates. And he’d spend days sanding and gluing the boards together…planeing it…planeing it…planeing it…but he always came up with something beautiful in the end.

- How he called our dog Allegra, “Viagra,”

- The way he’d yell “CAROL,” when he’d open up the freezer and stuff would tumble out at him.

- How bedtime was always promptly at 9:00 pm, no matter who was there, or what was going on.

- And how, for me, he was always the calm harbor in the sea of chaos that is a Zadra family function (and I say that lovingly), but I could always sit by him and talk. Not always about anything important, but it was special to me. This is probably one of the biggest things I will miss about him.


Sully will always be special to me. I will sorely miss him, but I know he is now at peace, in a better place. I know that I am a better person for knowing him, and he makes me forever proud to share the name “Zadra.”

It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my father-in-law, Maelie's Grandpa Sully, and Mikey's dad, Michael Zadra, Sr. He passed away early this morning. He was an amazing man, who always made you feel welcome in his home, who would joke with you, kid you, feed you, love you. While his passing fills me with sadness, I know that I am a truly better person for having known him, and I know that he is now at peace. This thought fills me with peace.

I want to thank you for your love and support. It is greatly appreciated.

Grandpa Sully Update

Grandpa Sully has been very unwell. He came down with double pneumonia a few days before the Fourth, and has been in the hospital. Treatment has not proven to be effective, and as of yesterday, he has decided to forego anymore medical treatment. He is in the hospital, being kept comfortable, and it is just a matter of time.

I spoke with him on the phone yesterday, told him I loved him, and heard an "I love you" back.

It's a very difficult time, but I choose to share it here for all the moral support and love from family and friends, and, it helps to talk about it. I hope for this blog to be a chronicle of Maelie's life for her to look back on one day, with the good, and the bad times. One day, I'll write a post about Grandpa Mike (Sully), with photos, so she can have it.

My posting might be a bit slower lately...but, I'll still be here. Thank you, Everyone.

First Fourth of July

I thought I should post an update...I haven't for awhile now. Maelie had a rough First Fourth of July. On the 3rd, we went out to my mom's, while Daddy drove our FDNY Fire Truck in a local parade. I didn't think Maelie could patiently wait around for the parade to start, playing in a parking lot for an hour and a half, so we decided to opt out of the parade and instead played with Grandma and Auntie Kim. After the parade, we had a dinner of hot dogs and polish, and then lit off some fireworks. At first, Maelie liked them, until Daddy started blowing off the loud kind. Then, it was no fun anymore. We left soon after, since we had an early day planned on the 4th, and it was late.

At 1:30 a.m., Maelie woke up screaming. I thought she was having a nightmare, as she has sometimes had in the past. She seemed to want to be with both Mike and me, and wanted the lights on. So, of course, I'm thinking, maybe she'll want to rest in the bed with Mike and me, with the lamp on. She still wasn't comfortable, and then it hit me...literally. She was sick. And threw up in the middle of our bed. D'oh!! And then, threw up all over me as I was bringing her to the bathtub. Poor baby. So, I gave her a bath and watched for any more episodes, there were none, while Mike stripped both her crib and our bed. We had noticed before that her crib sheet was wet, but before she got sick in OUR bed, we didn't think much of it...thinking maybe her bottle leaked or something. Yeah, we weren't too bright that night.

Daddy got an education on the 4th...always remember to be flexible with children. He had planned to take her to another local parade early in the morning, her in the parade in my friend's little convertable. Mike had had magnetic signs printed up that said, "Empress Maelie," and then, "Made in Vietnam, Loved in the USA." He so wanted to show off his special little girl, but, alas, it wasn't to be. The rest of the Fourth was Mike sulking, and Maelie resting. Not a fun Fourth, by any stretch of the imagination. Mike has since realized that with children, one must be flexible.

We did try to take Maelie for a car ride that night to see our city's fireworks. Of course, Mike wouldn't listen to me that our roof has the best vantage point, but, it was fun to go for a ride at night and get out of the house anyway. Maelie was NOT happy when the fireworks started, unfortunately. Surprisingly, we had stopped down one of our city's side streets to watch them, and Maelie started wailing because of the noise....a stray cat came RUNNING across the street to come see her. It was weird. I have photos of this, and the rest of our adventures, to post later.

There WILL be a photo update soon, I promise. Life is a little chaotic at the moment. I came down with the flu now after Maelie, and, as you'll read in another post, life isn't joyous at the moment. Hope everyone had a better Independence Day than we did!!! :)