Happy Birthday, Christmas, New Year's, Anniversary!

We get most of our big holidays out of the way in a single two week span of time around here. It's really been too long since I've posted anything, I'm sorry. Thank you all my friends for your Christmas wishes on my last post. Here are some highlights in bulleted points from the last few weeks:

• I ordered Denis' annual carrot cake from Fred Meyer's because I recently had a slice that was great. I was very disappointed to realize that the cake I had tasted came from the store across town. This one was a little strange tasting. But that didn't deter Denis from eating about half of it over a few days.
• One of my Christmas presents was an electric ice cream maker! :o) So far I have made some yummy butter pecan ice cream in it.
• Denis had Christmas Eve and day off for the first time since we were married. We had a nice evening with my mom.
• Joey knocked all the ornaments off the lower branches of our tree and we gave up on putting them back up.
• Phoebe is on just one medication now and is much improved. She has gained weight and is acting like her old self. Her most recent lab results were improved, but one liver value is still a little elevated. We don't really know what caused the trouble or how long the medication with keep helping.
• Our Christmas gift to my brother and his family was a donation to Heifer International. Their gift to us was a donation to Project Chacocente. Great minds think alike, huh? (We had not discussed the ideas with each other.)
• I have started using my Nordic Track and can tell that my stamina is improving. It takes a lot of coordination to use the arm pulley together with the legs. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it. So far, I'm just doing my legs.
• Denis has not yet been able to get a decent shot of espresso out of the new coffee maker. He thinks that our grinder won't grind finely enough. Now we are waiting for our new high quality grinder to arrive by UPS.
• Denis and I are leaving for a short anniversary trip. We're going to the Oregon Coast, starting in Florence (halfway up the state) and then continuing North to the last town before crossing the Columbia River to Washington. It's supposed to be stormy the whole time we are gone, so hopefully what they say about storms at the coast is true - they are supposed to be fun to watch.

I think that's it for now.