In 6 hours we will be flying with our youngest daughter to Seattle.  She graduated a month ago and this is the job she has chosen to pursue. We are excited for her, but my heart is also full of melancholy.  I find myself crying at random moments.  Yesterday watching young mothers and their children at the checkout in Walmart I was overtaken and felt tears well up.  Ah, well, who really thinks about them leaving when they are little?  I certainly never gave it much thought.  Actually I was so busy I didnt have much time for any pondering. Time for bed and a few hours of sleep.

We huddled in the house most of today.  No school tomorrow, too.  I am really enjoying the time to help Celina pack for her move.  We had our cubes delivered today.  It’s a new way to move.  They deliver moving cubes that you fill yourself and lock.  They then deliver the cubes by truck to your destination.  They look like big metal closets parked in our driveway.  Tomorrow we start packing them. 

I found some old wool suits that my mother had made for her in London in the early ’50s.  One is from hand-woven Harris tweed.  The other has a tag that says it was woved by a Donegal  weaver in Ireland.  His name has vanished with time but there is a place on the tag that had his signature.  They are true classics!  This is the Harris tweed.

Look at the details! It is fully lined too.

She is in the center of the back row surrounded with all her best friends.  I think everyone thinks of her that way!  Thanks to all of you who have prayed.  We continue to pray for complete recovery.  Oh, but it was so good to see her again!

Brrr!  The cold front blew in and we are surrounded with grey, wet weather.  Perhaps this will begin to acclimate our girl to Seattle weather.  This Friday we fly out there to get her settled.  Be praying for us that everything will come together.  We need to find an apartment and inexpensive car that won’t break down in one week.  We have never been there before so it will be complicated to say the least. 

Every year at the new year’s beginning, I pray for a fruit of the Spirit to focus on in the coming year.  Last year and the year before I focused on joy.  So this year after several weeks of prayer I have settled on faith. In some translations it is faithfulness, but what I feel I need to focus on is being unafraid.  Many things don’t get done because I am apprehensive of their outcome. I think if I worked on faith, I would develop a more optimist approach towards situations. When I trust in God and his provisions, I really have no excuse for being afraid of the future. With that in mind, I am eagerly looking forward to the challenge of helping our daughter get set up. Well, to be completely honest, I remind myself to be excited about it and not nervous or scared. 

I think I am going to get some clothes washing and get out my wool pants that need hemming and bravely cut off the extra material.  Enjoy your weekend, folks!!

We made it back from Mexico in record time.  The longest time ever!!!  Our bus ride is generally around 7 hours. Sometimes a bit more if the border is busy.  This return trip took 13 1/2 hours!  We were stuck at the border for 6 1/2 hours waiting to get to the check point. I’ll tell you; sleeping on a bus is no fun and definitely not refreshing.  We are fortunate to have been able to leave on an earlier bus than we originally planned.  We left at 9:00 at night and got home at 11:30 the next morning.  But, oh, the trip was so worth it.  Here our new addition.

Gian is an peaceful, alert baby.  He was happy to look at us and try to communicate.  He naturally fell into a three-hour eating schedule, much to my amazement!  I had forgotten how tiny a newborn can be.

He will be blessed with two grandfathers and three grandmothers.  I am his mother’s godmother, but to him and his brother, I am Grammy along with his Nanna and his Abuelita.  He is a blessed little boy to be welcomed into such a loving family!

Edit:  His name is pronounced “zhee-AHN”

In a few hours my son and I are going to Monterrey, Mexico, to meet my new grandson who was born yesterday!  We are so excited to go even if it does entail two seven-hour, middle-of-the-night bus rides.  I am sure we will love every minute.  Pictures to come when we return. 

Merry Christmas to you all!! May you have a truly wonderful day
surrounded by those you love and full of the joy of giving and
receiving. May the peace of God fill your hearts as we all pause to
remember the birth of God’s greatest gift to the world!

Two posts in one day!  It is obvious that I have a bit more time over Christmas vacation, isn’t it?

A week ago our youngest daughter graduated from Texas A&M.  Whoop!!  We are so excited about her success.  She earned a degree in Civil Engineering with a Math minor.  Soon she will go to her first career level job with an engineering firm near Seattle.  We will miss her so much, but I also am excited about her new adventure. 

Tonight, she is baking cookies.  She says that when she is stressed, she loves to bake. At school, she’d bake until she ran out of ingredients and give cookies, pies and cakes to all her friends. I told her I’d buy any ingredients she needed so she can do all our Christmas baking.  Hopefully, it will help her wind down from this frantic last semester.