Hello friends, family, and domestic rodents,

Things are a-changin' in Zenzland.  So I thought it was time for me to once again document some of the recent happenings and pass them along for your approval, condemnation, or indifferent bemusement.   In all honesty, I must tell you that I would have had a lot more fun typing this up a couple days ago, prior to the overwhelming events that have just descended upon our nation.  But perhaps this will come to you as a bright spot, and minister as a reminder of the little pleasures the Father so graciously blesses us with daily, even while humanity has its way around us...

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The first reportable addition to the Zenz household has been with us for some time now.  But I've not mentioned him before, so I'll do so now.   We have a hamster.   This was an accident.   It all happened so fast...  We were walking through the pet section of Meijer one fine day.  Isaac and Gracie were enjoying the parakeets and goldfish and caged fury critters.  Amity and I were discussing how sometime (far in the future) it might be nice to get some sort of little pet.  Then someone - okay it was me - said, "Hey, Isaac, would you like to get a hamster someday?"  Now, the most amazing thing happened during the course of that sentence.  The only thing I can compare it to is those shots I've seen from "The Matrix" -- you know, where everything freezes and the camera swings around the characters while they are hovering motionless in the air...  Well, between the words "Hamster" and "Someday," time and space as we know it stopped, while Isaac jumped up and down ecstatically shouting "YES! YES! YES!"  Then the world returned back to normal, the word "someday" came out, and ten minutes later we were leaving the store with a metal cage, a rolly-ball, woodchips, and a little rodent in a box.

When we returned home, Isaac named our fuzzy guest Dapper-Doo.  The most exciting time of his four-legged life came one night when someone - okay it was me (man, it's always me...) - left the lid of Dapper's cage open.  Our search for him was fruitless and he had free run of the house for 24 hours before Amity finally heard him scurrying about our room the following night.  Unfortunately, now he doesn't get out much at all, due to a, uh, suspected ailment of some sort.  After he was returned from a week of hamstersitting, we noticed his nether-regions were growing abnormally large.  When no baby Dappers appeared, he was declared by authorities within the household to have "giant-bum disease."  Human contact was heavily frowned upon, especially contact by family members under three years of age, who apparently must be more susceptible to the negative effects of hamsters carrying "giant-bum disease."  So sad to say, Dapper-Doo mainly sits in his cage, observed form afar, remembering fondly his former exploits around the house and cursing his new lot in life.  Who knows, one day maybe someone - okay make your guesses who - will successfully sneak him outside and release him to pass his days frolicking amongst the blueberry bushes behind our house.

Another new addition to our home is a spiffy G3 computer and a monster, refrigerator-sized monitor.  The Lord graciously blessed us with this gift through some good friends; this will be a very important tool for me if and when I can get some serious freelance projects going.  But in the meantime Isaac is giving the "pooter" the biggest workout.  I've got a fairly large collection of returned product from the freebee-rack here at work (since we're not given copies of any of the software we create (not that someone's bitter or anything - okay, okay me again) ).  Anyway, Isaac has mastered navigation quickly.  Of course when I first instructed him to click on things, he'd place the mouse on the screen and click away.  He loves to play the handful of CD's I have installed, and Gracie loves to stand on the chair next to Isaac and fall off banging her head on the floor...

Soon we ourselves will be new additions.  In a couple of weeks our family is going to be moving down the road to a less expensive house.  It's taken us two years to finally find an appropriately sized but affordable rental in this land of retirees and waterfronts.  It will be a bit annoying having to do so much packing and loading just to drive 2 minutes down the road and then unpack and unload it all.  But the freed and needed moola will be nice, as will be the nearby playground and icecream shop (where all our freed moola will go...)

And finally, the last addition I have to report...  For any of you who had not yet heard and were wondering with all this talk of "additions"...  yep, another Zenzling should be turning up around May.  Okay, go ahead and say it out loud - 'Boy, those Zenzes breed like rabbits!'  We're very excited and we covet your prayers as this tiny one continues to be knit together.

Isaac seems to have a pretty good understanding about what's going on – he knows there's a baby in Mommy's belly and knows it will be a long time before it "gets out."  Coming home one day, I was informed that Isaac had named it for us: Taga (tah-gah).  We hoped it wouldn't stick.  But every time we'd ask him what we should call the baby, he'd say Taga.  Not only that, but sometimes the baby has a second name - Taga Tooter.

The gender seems to be undecided.  When I asked Isaac if he wanted a brother or sister he said, "A sister. No, not a sister - a brother! ...two brothers!"   Another day I asked him if he thought Taga would be a boy or a girl.  He replied matter-of-factly, "Her is a boy."  But then he said, "Let's check!" and ran over to Amity, placed his hand on her stomach, and after a moment said "Nope, a girl."

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With that, I'd like to close my letter to you with these sincere wishes - wishes that can be found at the openings of some other well-known letters:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.