Update from the Dog Shows

Written by Kathleen, posted by Janet:

Hello all. Geez, I have gone from avidly checking me e-mail a couple of times every day to being lucky if I check it once every other day! Of course, I am still clinging to my cheep dial-up service, and I have 2 teenagers and a husband to compete for computer time with!

Here is how I spent my weekend. Amanda and I left after lunch on Friday to travel to Kansas City for the first ever National 4-H Dog Agility Show. It was held at the Kansas City Royal, this huge facility on the Missouri side. Amanda was the only representative of Sedgwick County. We went with some friends from Kingman county and stayed over night in a hotel. I must admit that the 4 of us behaved liked little girls at a slumber party. We giggled and laughed and carried on and really didn't sleep a whole lot. Then Amanda and Ashley competed on Saturday.

Amanda got a perfect 200 score which means they determine the winner based on the time she took to complete the course. She ended up in third place because 2 other dogs (with much longer legs than Cubby's!) ran it faster. Then she competed with the top 10 and got third again! Both times Cubby ran the course in 49 seconds with a perfect 200 score!! She did great. Her friend Ashley competed in Agility 2 and did well but didn't place. We left Kansas City about 9:00 PM on Saturday and got home at 1:00 AM. We were sooooooooooo tired! Then we were busy with church and 4-H stuff all day Sunday so I am still feeling groggy! Dave and the other kids had a good weekend and picked out pumpkins and did some other fun things while we were gone.

Next weekend, Christopher, Amanda, Kristin and I will all be attending dog conference at Rock Springs Ranch. Dave will have Anna all to himself all day Saturday and Sunday! They are already planning a trip to the zoo as well as Toys R Us!

Family in South Bend

Uncle Frank, Zach, Matt, Lovella and Ron hit South Bend ready to enjoy every minute of the Notre Dame Football weekend and made it home exhausted, I'm sure, but with stories to tell.

It was a good game (Notre Dame beat BYU), pretty decent weather (some rain), lots of good food, and Zach was absolutely thrilled. He got his ticket signed by Chinadum Ndukwe (Defense, number 81) and Lovella bought him a football at the bookstore. On Sunday morning they all went to the pancake house, Bibler's, of course, for breakfast, and there was a table full of football players there. Thank goodness L. had bought the football for Zach. He got his ball autographed by Jeff Samardzija, (Wide Receiver, number 83) ) also known as "The Shark." It was fun seeing him so excited.

Charlie Weis

Promise keeper: the last wish of a dying boy
By: Terry Moran
Date: October 2, 2005
From: World News Tonight (ABC News)

(Off Camera) Finally tonight, keeping a promise. There are many great stories about the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. Stories that wake up the echoes, as the song goes. This is another one. It's a story about a dying boy and his last wish. He wanted to call a play for the Irish football team, in a real game. ESPN's Tom Rinaldi tells us what happened.

TOM RINALDI, ESPN: Almost from the day he was given his name, Montana, after Joe Montana, Montana Mazurkiewicz grew up watching Notre Dame football. From the day he was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year and a half ago, he kept watching. And last week, he asked if a player from the team could visit him at home. The head coach came instead.

MOTHER: The coach walked right past me. And he said, hi, I am Charlie Weis, and Montana's eyes just lit up.

CHARLIE WEIS, NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH: You're looking at a kid that you know is not going to make it. I thought my job was to do all I could to get a smile on his face.

MOTHER: The coach just asked him, what would you, what would you like to do? Would you like to call a play? And Montana said, I'd like to call the first offensive play. Charlie Weis says, well, do you want me to run or pass? And he goes, pass to the right. Not just pass, pass to the right. And the coach just kind of broke out in a sweat, you know?

TOM RINALDI: Just a day and a half after the visit, Montana died in his mother's arms. He was ten years old.

MOTHER: I just held him and sang him the stupid Notre Dame fight song, and then, some other songs that my daughter had written. And I just told him he could rest, it was time to stop fighting, that he could rest now, and that he was my hero.

TOM RINALDI: A day later, the family watched as Notre Dame played. For its first offensive play of the game, the ball rested inside the Notre Dame one yard line.

MOTHER: No way. He's not going to pass it. He's not gonna do it. He can't, he can't make that play.

CHARLIE WEIS: I said, well, we don't have a choice. I said, it's not whether we're going to do it, we don't have a choice, run the play.

ANNOUNCER, MALE: Play action for Quinn. Throws, wide-open, (inaudible). The tight end with a hurdle. Provided a first down.

TOM RINALDI: The play went for 13 yards, but reached much farther, all the way to a family in Indiana, a family in grief.

MOTHER: It was the fact that coach Weis kept his word. That was the big thing, that he kept his word in an almost impossible situation to a ten year-old kid that he didn't even know.

TOM RINALDI: Last Sunday, Weis returned to the house and gave the family the game ball, signed by the entire team. But he knows and they know, it's about more than football. For ABC News, Tom Rinaldi, ESPN.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) Pass to the right.TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) That's our report. Tomorrow on "Good Morning America," more on the Lake George boat accident.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) I'm Terry Moran. For all of us at ABC News, have a good week. Good night.