I can hardly believe it's another new year already! This year, we traveled for the holidays. We started with going to grandma Judy's for a few days...would have stayed longer, but currently, daddy's brother Shaun is living there with his dog, who pees everywhere, barks a lot, is freaked out by a lot of things, and Shaun doesn't take care of her the way he should, so it's not very pleasant to be there. Plus, he behaved very strangely at Thanksgiving when he came to our house, so that makes it even more awkward. We managed to have a good visit at Grandma's anyway--saw Nanny, grandpa Kerry (and Peggy), you got to play with Jonathan, we went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and saw the Christmas lights both at Keokuk and Quincy.
On Christmas Eve morning, we headed to Missouri to Nana's house. As we always do, Nana and I cooked lots of yummy things (most of which you didn't try, but hoping you will eventually). Christmas day was great--you were so happy to get a note back from Santa, thanking you for leaving him some cookies :) And of course you loved your presents: Portal board game, expansion set for Gravitrax, marble maze, a letter board, and a few other little things. We stayed for a week so that we could celebrate Pa-Pa Junior's 76th birthday (on New Year's eve) and ringing in the new year together. We let you stay up so that you could 'toast' with us (you got Kool-Aid in your flute) and we watched (from inside the house) Pa-Pa shoot his .44 at midnight (this is a tradition of his).
In other news, we haven't had but a couple of "dustings" of snow since the Halloween one--very weird winter so far. It was the second warmest Christmas on record in a long time (both in Missouri and Chicago area), so it certainly wasn't a white one!
And the biggest news of all: you and I are going to France again in about 8 weeks from now! My friend Mélo--the one whose apartment we stayed in 2 years ago--invited us to come over and stay as long as we like. She wants her boys, especially Maty, to practice/improve English with us. Particularly with you, since you two are almost the same age. This time, however, we won't have our own place, as the apartment is rented out. If the strikes aren't too bad, we'll go visit Marion and maybe JT, possibly other friends of mine while we are there. We're going to stay 8 weeks, which sounds long, but I'm sure it will go by quicker than we think! I'm only a bit nervous for being able to work while we are there. When they had their old place, it was easy to close off a room and do my lesson from there; I'm hoping they have doors in place so that I can do this again this time (as I have to do most lessons during the night time). At any rate, it's an amazing opportunity for you and I both to get to spend time in France like this and I can hardly wait! ~love always, mom
