Another Year Already?

Geez, the time goes by so fast!!!



I hope everyone had wonderful holidays. Ours were very nice!



I'll back up a bit - last I wrote, I will still mourning the loss of Milo (and probably always will). I still think of him every day, still miss him, but can look at pictures of him without crying.



We decided to stay a one-cat family, and Otis seemed to be okay with that. Then Precious called and asked us to adopt one of her cats. Bigs, his name is. He's black and white, and HUGE! A twenty-pounder! He has a head like a lion, but he's a sweetie. After six years of living with Precious, her husband and our mom decided he was too much of a problem to keep around. So Bigs came to live with us in mid-October. Precious flew up with him in a pet carrier. Picture it - a 20-lb. cat crammed into a carrier for a 7-lb. animal. He looked like a ship-in-a-bottle, if the bottle was three quarts too small for the ship. But he adjusted immediately and despite some early "What the heck are you - I don't think I've ever seen anything this big and it scares me!" hissing from Otis, the two have become fast friends. L&M loves Bigs. He keeps a heated blanket on the couch for him. As if the 'little guy' doesnt' put out enough BTUs to heat the house, on his own!



On November 11th, L&M's newest grandson was born. He's a real keeper - big, sweet, and very well-behaved.



Thanksgiving was spent at L&M's brother's house. Unkie R and Sis-In-Law unveiled their new kitchen. It's gorgeous. Huge. State-of-the-Art. I went home and threw rocks at my house... It was a nice day.



Our family dinner on the Sunday before Christmas with Kal and Wifeypooh, The Girl, The Boy, BG and his fiancee, L&M and I was a lot of fun. As always, Wifeypooh makes a fantastic dinner - roast ham (not for MD, but everyone else loves it), spinach lasagna (mine, mine, mine - but I share!), broccoli, salad, Italian garlic bread...yum! Wifeypooh is a hell of a cook. We have shared this tradition since Christmas of 1994, when Kal and Wifeypooh were having their first married Christmas together. This is our meal - it doesn't vary. I like the continuity. I bring the tortellini wreath with pesto dip, and they're always a bowl of pistachio nuts on the apps table. And for dessert, Wifeypooh makes eclairs. Homemade eclairs. With chocolate or vanilla frosting. Decorated with little frosting candy canes and wreaths and snowflakes. Totally delicious. We usually need to wrestle BG for the eclairs. He gets piggy!



The kids are wonderful. They're getting SO big. It exciting to watch, but hard at the same time. I still remember The Girl's first Christmas with us, when she was six months old. Now, she's going to be a teenager. As I said, exciting and sad at the same time.



L&M and I got a chance to spend Christmas Eve at BG's and Lady's house with her family and friends. Her family is wonderful, I really like them and I think we're going to be a great blend. And her friends are totally wonderful. I want to adopt them.



Christmas was really nice! We finally did a 'name draw' on Thanksgiving and it was so nice to need to buy two presents for the adults instead of ten. Of course, Niece still gets a gift as she is only 18, and the cutoff is 21 for gifts from everyone. And of course, the one person I did not want to draw, the one who has never worn, used, or acknowledged a gift I have given her, is the one I drew. So I got her some nice things focused on 1) her new kitchen, and 2) her son's impending marriage next summer. And she cried. I was so touched.



We saw everyone, with the addition of Precious and hubster, Nephews and Niece-in-Law, on December 30th when we had the Rehearsal Dinner for BG-and-Lady's wedding! The food was fantastic, the company was wonderful. It was a happy night.



On New Year's Eve Day, I spent time getting my hair and makeup done for the wedding that night. Of course, it snowed like crazy all day. The judge, a friend of Lady's for the past ten or more years, almost didn't make it due to the travel down the 128 corridor. She and her kind husband had to pull over and take the train from 128 to Providence! But they made it, and the wedding was beautiful. Short. To-the-point. No frills. I watched my son's face as his bride came down the aisle (that's what I do - I'd rather watch the groom's expression than the bride's procession). I've never seen him so happy. And the poor guy was sick as a dog for three days before the wedding. But you'd never know it. He was radiant. She was simply, elegantly beautiful, and looked very happy. I have to admit I cried a little, just a little...I didn't sob through the whole thing like I did when Kal and Wifeypooh were married. But I did cry, a little.



The reception was a lot of fun. Sort of like a big New Year's Eve party with a wedding thrown in for added entertainment. Everyone at our table danced their shoes off. Big Red, Precious' younger son, loved sitting by the dance floor and watching this one girl who was quite a 'busy' dancer, and whose dress top was having trouble staying up. Yeah...she flashed him. Yeah...he enjoyed it...



I'm very proud of my boys. They're good people. And I'm proud of the women they chose. And I'm totally in love with our grandkids.



Am I a lucky girl, or what?????