We’ve been asked why we haven’t posted anything since the first part of November. Not sure other than leaving Oregon was sad and anticipating our trip back to Minnesota was all that was on our minds. So I’m going to talk about Christmas back in Minnesota and come back to our adventures in California later.
Joe and I could hardly wait to get back to our kids and grandbaby Cate in Minnesota. We gave ourselves 5 days to make the 2052 mile trip back. We were so fortunate. The weather was perfect which made the roads perfect. We left CA on Dec 16th and were in MN on Dec 20th. We were so excited to hold our granddaughter but our dogs had other ideas. Both ended up sick on the drive back so we needed to get them to the vet ASAP. Long story short – they are almost 15 years old and are having many old age issues that will cause us to make some decisions soon. We saw our vet almost as much as we saw our kids in the 13 days we were back.
This grandma was so excited to see her 10 month old grandbaby. Cate had a little cold so grandma got to stay with her during the day instead of her going to daycare for the first three days we were back. What a joy! Even with a cold this little girl is the best baby. We had a blast crawling around on the floor playing and reading. But Cate’s eyes light up when she sees her grandpa. I think she already has him wrapped around her little finger and with that twinkle in her eyes and her smile who can blame him.
Christmas day was quiet with just our daughter Cassie and her husband Aaron, Cate and our oldest son Eric. Our daughter Amanda was in Florida with her future husband, Ron, coming back on the 26th and our son Zach was coming in from Ohio on the 27th with his future wife, Lauren. We decided to have our family Christmas on Dec 31st when everyone was back in Minnesota. What a fabulous day! It was a very low key day with plenty of laughter and good food. Joe and I sat back and counted our blessings and we know we have many. In this last year we added to our family our beautiful granddaughter Cate and we count her as our number one blessing.
We have a very busy year coming up so a lot of the conversations were about weddings. Zach and Lauren are getting married in June in Dayton, Ohio and Ron popped the question to Amanda over Christmas and they are getting married in November in Naples, Florida. It is nice being full-timers. We will just move our home to where the kids are getting married. This next year we will be blessed with adding Ron and Lauren to our family. Sorry Ron and Lauren but Cate will still hold the number one spot.
It was hard to say good-bye to our kids. Zach and Lauren took off for Ohio on Jan 1st after only 4 short days in MN. Our initial plans were to also leave that day but decided to hang out one more day with Cate (and the kids). The easiest part of leaving was that we know in a blink of an eye we will be back in MN for the summer.
Our drive back to CA was uneventful. Again we had perfect weather and perfect roads. This time we drove a little harder and made it back to the warmer weather in just 4 days. It was good to be back in our home and plan to head farther south at the end of the week to meet up with friends.
Cate – remember we are “Under the Same Moon” – grandpa and grandma love you!
