2004, the year in reviewThe holidays were nice. This year we got an artificial Christmas tree. We'd always felt we could not do that, until this year. We decided, screw it, we just wanted to make things as simple as possible. It actually is probably the nicest shaped tree we've ever had. So, aside from being a fake, it's pretty darn nice. It seems like the holidays are just so stressful, never enough time to get everything done, so having a tree is one less thing to deal with. But our holiday was nice. We had Christmas Eve here with (Sue's mother) Fran and Christmas day here with Fran and our friends Diane and Jonathan and their 9 month-old son Owen. Speaking of them, early this year they invited us to be with them when Owen was born. Sue has never seen a birth. She figured it might be her only opportunity! She said, "It was exciting and incredible, but I must say I was glad to be viewing rather than giving birth. Oh my." Then, we had another little one come into our lives this year. Steve's middle son Jeff and Jeff's wife Nicole had a darling little girl, Madison. She was born in October with lotsa brown hair and is just the cutest little thing. Usually Sue doesn't get all ga-ga over babies, but this little one really gets to her. Sue said, "I love it when I get to see her and hold her, feed her and all that." They live really close by to us. Steve is absolutely thrilled to be a grandfather, he likes to be called gramps. Sue said, "the Italian name for grandma is nonna so I think I'll have her call me nonna Sue," that feels right to Sue. We were all up in Spokane, WA for Thanksgiving. Steve's two sisters have been living up there for many years now. His sister Lura has kidney cancer. At one point, after she was recovering from surgery, her husband Floyd had triple bypass heart surgery. So, Steve made several trips up there this year to help out. Lura's been through surgery and treatment and is now at the point where there's nothing more that can be done for her. She's in wonderful spirits and has her good and bad days. While we were there she usually rested most of the day and then we gathered at her house to spend the evening with her. We went up with Ken, Jeff went up with Nicole and Madison, and Steve Jr came there from the Seattle area with his girlfriend, Luci. So we spent 5 days there and I got a lot of time with little Maddie which I enjoyed a lot. We're glad we were all able to go, it meant a lot to Lura and to everyone to be there together. Steve's oldest son Steve Jr's is 28 now and has been living up in WA for many years. Steve Jr. started in Washington w/Aunt Lura and is now near Seattle. He met Luci and they moved in together many months ago. When he told Sue about her over the phone he said, "he's just like me, hooking up with someone with 3 kids." She has two boys and a girl. Two of the kids live with them and the other one lives with his dad. I met her Thanksgiving and she's a very nice lady, intelligent, good mom. They are very happy together. A couple days before Christmas they got engaged! Youngest son Kenneth is turning 18 next month and is a senior in high school. He has a car and is scheduled to take his driving test this month. He works part time at a local ice cream parlor. Sue's mother Fran moved out here this year, in February. She's talked about it for several years and after more frequent trips to the hospital with no family nearby, she really wanted to be near family. So she got a mobile home in a senior community that's about a 15 minute drive from our house. It's a really nice set up for her, her neighbors are wonderful, and her home is very nice and spacious. She has a car and drives around regular streets, no freeways. She's been doing a pretty good job of getting around and meeting people and getting involved in things so she is not quite as dependent on us as some her age would be. In a lot of ways it's nice to have her nearby, but it's still a big adjustment after so many years of being long distance. Sue's brother John and sons are doing fine. They have a nice house they built a few years ago. He just sent us out some wine which was a real treat. Early this summer we went on an Alaska cruise. We completely fell in love with cruising. We went back to La Foret for Sue's birthday for a wonderful dinner (where we were married) and went up to Sonoma Valley for a long weekend getaway with wine tasting and relaxation. Other highlights of the year were our new kitties and the second edition of Sue's book being published. We went to a cat show in January. We fell in love with the Burmese breed. Sue had never been to a cat show before and loved it. She had never dealt with the world of breeders before, until we decided we had to get burmese cats. We still have our mixed breed Calico, Tupper, who is over 10 now. And, now we also have a Burmese sable named Pixel who has a beautiful brown coat and a Burmese blue named Shadow who has a grey coat. They are brothers by the same father and cousins by their mothers (so dad "sired" two sisters) . They are wonderful cats, very smart, affectionate, lap cats, sleep under the covers, entertaining, and of course full of mishief. It's been a hard adjustment for Tupper but she's finally getting used to them. They don't get real big, usually 10 lbs is average. We had a real scare with Shadow who got very ill suddenly after we'd had them a few months and almost died, but like lunatics we went through what we had to save the little guy and many vet bills later he bounced back. So we feel we saved his life. We're all really enjoying them. And then there was the book. Oh my God, what a project! For this edition Sue was the only author. She worked really hard on it, rewrote and added a lot to it, and then when that was all done Steve did all the final layout and design (the publisher had done that part last time.) It was a ton of work, basically like having two full time jobs. We worked on it like crazy. And used some vacation time to work on it when we got down to the wire. It was rewarding though, and is selling well. Working with together was in interesting experience. Then we both made job changes. Sue has moved to a different writing team, still at the same location and in the same organization but writing about a different product and with some different responsibilities. It's been a challenge. Steve did something kind of similar at the university and is much happier in his new roles.
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