Dear Friends:
We got back home to Arizona from summer in Colorado in mid-October, got settled for a week and then went to California for a week to camp on the beach just north of Oceanside on Camp Pendleton for what has become our yearly October trip. It's always fun to sit on the beach and walk in the sand and revisit places I loved while living in north San Diego in 2003-2006. Highlights this year included lunch with a bunch of girlfriends from my Bible study group there as well as moms from my Girl Scout troop. While the weather this year wasn't quite as warm as it was in 2019, we did see a large pod of dolphin who spent most of an afternoon just off the beach where we camped.
After getting settled again here at home, we all got back to our churches (Mom and Dad attend the church here in our neighborhood while I attend Open Door Fellowship in Phoenix) I have not been volunteering at the library since it has been closed.
My sister and her family came to visit over Thanksgiving and we had a great time together.
Mom and Dad drove back to Denver earlier this week for Christmas and took Maddie with them.She is still hanging on despite her liver cancer diagnosis last April though she has slowed down and really hates the medicine she takes twice a day. (Her vet put her on a variety of Chinese herbs that have kept her alive this long, according to the vet the other day.)
I fly to Denver next week and we will spend Christmas morning at my sister's house, which has become our tradition since they finished the space above their garage a several years ago. I have an appointment with my neurologist on New Year's Eve to get my Botox injections and then we will drive back here together and get hoe on January 2.
I am anxious to go and then get back here because on January 4, I am moving out and into my own apartment! It's a cute little place very close b this neighborhood less than two miles and across the street from Trader Joe's!)--brand new and all on one level. It's just one bedroom, but even has a small backyard and will be plenty big for me. Maddie will stay here with my parents since giving her medicine is a two-person job and I want her to keep taking it. I have picked out some furniture and will bring some things from Denver that have been storage in our basement there for years. I have started collecting things here too and have piles in the guest room closet (a coffee maker and kitchen utensils and such, ready to go along with all of my things in the casita..
I am super excited and have told people that I have that giddy/excited birthday/Christmas feeling from childhood all the time now. This has been a goal and dream our family has talked about for a few years now and I can hardly believe it's really happening.
While Mom and Dad always mean Colorado when they talk about home, Arizona has come to feel like home to me and I am thrilled to become an official Arizona girl!
If I don't check in again before Christmas, I hope yours is filled with great joy!
