Our Hiatus is Finally Over!

Unbelievable! The gap in posting from last time to now says something about our lives. In a nutshell, here's what's happened:

• We moved from one location in Carbondale to another.
• Immediately following that move, Jim had a heart attack followed up with bypass surgery.
  It has been a long road to recovery. Recovery has been very challenging and is still a work in progress.
• Lilly spent six months with her grandma and dad in Chicago for the first semester of 2008.
• Lilly is now in 8th grade at Carbondale Middle School
• Bethany is now a freshman at Carbondale Community High School
• Jokingly, Bethany is called our 'wild child'! She is the life of the party, and has gobs of friends, including a boyfriend!
• Lilly's library of reading fills her floor to ceiling bookselves. She is an avid Web surfer, and is our resident veterinarian.
• Me? I just celebrated (don't know about that) my 62nd birthday! Doesn't seem possible!
  After having double knee replacement surgery a couple of years ago, I can now dance a jig! Ah, not really!

 Our pets have filled our life with laughs and groans. Bear, our MinPin, chews on anything, especially if it's leather...like my shoes! Our tabby tom cat now weighs 18 lbs., and has given up jumping over the pet gate. And, our latest edition, Isabella, our little black cat, keeps us all running.

Isabella and Tabby Tom Cat

Tabby will never have a sedentary life and may loose some weight with a new adopted sister in his life. There is nothing too high to climb on or too scary to investigate. I opened the freezer one day, and Isabella fell down into my arms!

Bear the MinPin

Unfortunately, we've made the decision to find Bear a new home. His upkeep requires more than any of us is able to focus on at this time. With Jim's health, the girls' schedules, and my trying to hold together everything in the family, poor Bear gets left behind. He will do much better in a home with smaller children, a loving family, and a yard he can call his own!

The latest in the saga of our lives is a new car: a PT Cruiser. We're still getting used to the differences from our habits in the other car. It is fun, though, to see the sky through the sun roof, listen to music on a Bose system, and when folding down the back seat having lots of space to haul stuff, like groceries.

Oh, yes...a couple of other things since our last post:

• I was so happy to attend our daughter's college graduation in Dayton, OH last November. It gave me an opportunity to spend some time with Reyhan and Razi, two of my beloved grandchildren.
• Then, in September, I visited son Greg, his wife Jody, and Austin and Natalie, two more of my beloved grandchildren in Aptos, CA. That's about five miles from Santa Cruz; and for my Baha'i friends, it's just down the mountain from Bosch Baha'i School.

So...that's it for now. I'll try to keep up our 'happenings', and in the meantime, visit my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/mari.hurt?ref=name