Holidays

I hope your holiday celebrations were filled with happiness, friends, and family. Our was very nice although David and I did not spend it together this year. I believe it is the first Christmas we have spent apart since we have been together... for geez... what is it now 7ish years or so?  Sumthin‘ like that.  We have the golf course right now and that is traditionally an active day on golf courses if the weather holds out.

People are off of work, out of school, and have family visiting.  So David could not leave it. 

 At the same time, I was so close to my family I could not pass up the trip to see them this holiday season since I have missed the last few years... and in particular I wanted to see my daughter and wily Grandson.

I had a wonderful visit with the family.  Everyone is doing great. As for the gift giving part of the celebration we draw names around Thanksgiving to narrow down our shopping lists and then exchanged our gifts Christmas morning.  

My brother-in-law Jeff drew my name and with a bit of detective work he found a necklace on Etsy that I had my eye on and that was his gift to me and I love it.









I had my Mom’s name and picked her up a few things and a book she has been waiting for... she was especially pleased with the book and has already finished it. 









There was almost an international incident as the Xmas tree tried two or three times to tumble over onto the party but Grandpa and Ave saved the day!  They just propped it back up and we simply laughed about it, and partied on.  TIMBER!

 Donovan is a busy bee.  He ran all over the house and is learning to bite. I know because he bit me... he has some pretty nice chompers that he uses on me... his Mama,  and of course on chocolate raisins.  He also climbed the Christmas decorating ladder and let us all know about it ...

and had a great time opening his presents even though his favorite toy was the wrapping paper tube! 


He got some full on Jedi Knight action with that thing until it fell apart and he started eating it. 

 His mother got him a little truck that plays music and/or honks when you push buttons on the top.  Best of all one of the button plays the song... “Funky Town”  and he REALLY enjoyed that and would do the baby dance whenever he could get it going good. The baby dance at this age consists of shifting and bouncing back and forth on his feet and then once in awhile throwing in a shoulder/back twist.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 The drives down to California, and back home again were (thank goodness) uneventful and I decided to travel down Hwy 101 instead of I-5 because of the snow in the mountains.  On the recommendation of my sister and brother-in-law Jeff I also decided to try a couple of audio books.  I downloaded one off of Amazon (via audible.com) and the other from the iTunes store and found I really enjoyed listening to them on the trips.  It was super simple. I downloaded them and then burned them onto discs. 

Then for the very first time I learned just WHO committed the Murder on the Orient Express as I was driving through the Emerald Triangle.  Very exciting!

I was very glad to be home... David missed me and I missed him.  He just about overdosed on frozen burritos and Delta was starting to not be interested in eating her food.

Turns out though, Delta was not moping.... we found out after the fact but she had snuck a dead salmon out of the creek.  In case you did not know... eating dead salmon can kill dogs and is a big issue here in the pacific northwest.  She got sicker and sicker and it was getting hard to get her to eat. We did not know what was wrong at first but when she just stopped eating all together we said enough... there is something really wrong.. and took her to the vet.  Turns out she had salmon poisoning.  Very treatable if caught in time... but if not 90% of dogs will die from it.  Apparently, domestic dogs are the only critters who have an issue with salmon poisoning. Not wolves, foxes, coyotes, cats, raccoons, bears... only domestic dogs and the story is that once they get it and if they are cured they supposedly won’t get it again. 

The salmon eat a snail, the snail has these fluke egg things in them... so the dog eats the salmon and the flukes hatch inside the dogs.  And she was pretty sick.  IV fluids, antibiotics, floppy like a rag doll sick.

It has taken a couple days and we have had to become tricky with her medicine  (hiding it in a spoonful of ice cream) but she is much better and is slowly starting to eat again.  It broke our hearts to see her so sick she is really a tender sweetheart of a girl.  She gives us a lot of love.

Beautiful artwork by Artist & Author Jackie Morris

We are so glad to have her back on track now and feeling better each day that is passes.

Just one more additional story that made the holidays... oh so special.  I went to go get some supplies from the store because we had a small tournament lined up for Jan 1.  The supplies included a few cases of beer.  I set them up on the counter and with my head down I was continuing to unload the cart.  The woman behind the counter grabbed the beer, scanned it, then said “I am going to have to see your...” and I turned my head to listen to what she was going to say.  She looked into my face and said, “oh... never mind.”

OUCH! 

I wailed, “OH MAN!  The timing of that!  You could have finished the sentence... Geez!”  She said “oh no.. no.. no... that's not what I meant.  Um... you just seemed to be in a hurry so I was not going to have you get your i.d. out.” 

Not a convincing recovery but I will take what I can get.