California for Stefani

Well, it’s Saturday and tomorrow is Halloween.  I have always loved Halloween… i like the dressing up (as a kid) and love all the candy.  As I got older I loved the fact you could get Halloween lights and now our house is fully decorated for the season.  I tend to stick to the mellow parts… pumpkins, Casper type ghosts and the occasional bat.  I am not a fan of the scary parts of Halloween, so I stay away from that.   As a Christian, I have never had a problem with this day and with trick or treating.  Why can’t we make the day what we want to make it?  I think Christians tend to take things too seriously.  Call it Harvest day, or whatever you want, but it’s still Halloween in my eyes.   I did put up my first winter lights… they are LED Snowmen, so they aren’t Christmas lights… they are winter lights.

We just got back from a great weekend with my parents.  We went to 6 wineries in Yakima, Washington.  I gave a list of various ones to Doug and told him to figure out which ones he wanted to do, and I would be the designated driver.  We wanted to take the Mustang, but 4 adults and many bottles of wine just didn’t make sense, so we took my parents Aerostar.  It was a good drive, but I missed my car.  Thankfully the Aerostar does pretty good on the hills, so that was much better than the Tercel we used to have LOL.  We stayed at a Best Western in Yakima and shared hotel room.  We always manage pretty good in that regards.  Nobody snores or farts too much HA HA HA!!  Between the 4 of us, we brought back 11 bottles of wine.  Thankfully the border guard was ok with that.  Oh wait… he was only told about 8 of them {giggle}.  We even did a winery tour of Kestrel Vintners… we were supposed to pay $25/person for the VIP treatment, but he waived the fee if we bought some wine.  

So we have driven with the top down a bit in the last week.  The weather has been cold, but if it isn’t raining we tend to drive around.  We have scarves, toques and jackets in the back of the car to keep us warm.  Too bad we don’t have heated seats, but beggars can’t be choosers… so we live without heated seats LOL.  It is amazing how often we look at our car and just grin.  This piece of metal with a vinyl roof makes us so very happy.  It actually brings us a little piece in our fairly unpeaceful (emotional) life…. which segues (spelt correctly) into some of my thoughts these days.

We still feel a little unsettled.  We love where we live and we love living so close to my parents… but sometimes we just feel so unsettled.  We booked our flights to LA for April and are very excited to be going back to California.  We love it there, but I think it is a matter of the grass being greener in another country (HA HA HA).   We have to learn to like it here because what if this is where we will be for a long time?  Thankfully White Rock is as close to California as we can get without moving out of Canada.  We can just say we are on our way!!

The root of our issues though needs to be dealt with… why do we feel so unsettled in such a beautiful city and with such a decent life?  I probably know the reason, but it probably is best to not get too much into it on a public forum.  I just have to get over our disappointments in people and move forward.  I was looking through my photo albums and that didn’t make it any better.  So many pictures of great parties we used to have… and none of those people are friends any more (except for my amazing parents).   I can’t even look at those pictures because it doesn’t bring me good memories, but all the sad reasons they are gone out of our lives.   Some reasons are because of church ( we aren’t Christian enough I guess), some reasons are because we weren’t the mover’s and shakers of the church and so being friends with us wasn’t good enough anymore (and yes, this is not a perception, but reality) and some are because our views on life didn’t mesh with theirs, and so “agreeing to disagree” wasn’t an option.  Of course some aren’t friends because people change (ourselves included) and you don’t have things in common anymore. 

How does one get over these disappointments when they stare you in the face every day?  Moving to Mexico was going to be a new start in life… with a clean slate on the “friendship” blackboard… now that board is only partially erased and we need to rewrite it instead of starting over.  I want to start over… live in a new place… make new memories… meet new people… people with no preconceived ideas of who we are, etc.  But that isn’t an option right now… so what do we do?  We hold our head high, forget the past, look to the future and rely on God to light our path into the unknown.   (This rambling is not any reflection of how wonderful my parents are as friends though).

On another note… for those out there who forget to take their marriages seriously… please make sure you take time for yourselves.  It’s one of the reasons we do these weekend things and just do stuff… we change up the routine so that life doesn’t get mundane.   Drive a different way to work (or back home) to see the world differently.  Do things spontaneously… get out there and enjoy life together.  Marriage is serious stuff and it takes work.   Your partner should be your best friend and best friends should get out and have fun.  Doug and I still fight even on our road trips (just ask Doug about Googling Target), but we work it out and plan the next one.  We need to mix it up to stop the routine getting us down.  We take our marriage seriously and want to make it work (helps that we both want the same thing).  I can’t believe it’s been 22 1/2 years already.  Sure glad I have Doug to enjoy life with.  Here is to many many more.

Less than 2 months until Christmas… YIPEEE (my favourite time of year)

Time for a little lighter blog.  I will try to not get to serious in this one, but I may slip every so often.  I figured I would make note of a few things that make me fun and not so normal (what is normal anyway).

  1.  I carry around a stuffed Mickey Mouse that I got in fall of 2005 when we visited Disneyland with my parents (yes I took my parents to their first trip to Disneyland).  Mickey Mouse travels with me everywhere.  He is like the traveling gnome from Travelocity.  I take pictures of him in every major photo stop that we go to.   He also sits in the back seat of our Mustang strapped in with the seatbelt (so he doesn’t fly out when driving with the top down).  I decided to even start a facebook page for him (oops… he started it himself, but I am just helping LOL).  It’s kinda fun to have him travel with us.  We get questions all the time, but everyone seems to like the idea and thinks it’s fun. 

2.  My hair is bright red… at least it is most of the time.  I love going as bright red as possible.   It helps me feel a little more fun and I feel less dull with it.  I used to have long, curly hair, but when Doug had his stroke, I decided I needed a change… so I cut my hair.  Soon my hair was really short and then one day I decided to get blond streaks.  I did the blond thing for awhile, and started dabbling with the reds and finally found a way to get it nice and bright red. 

3.  I hate silver… it seems so “normal” and dull.  So when we got our Mustang and found out it was silver (our Escape was silver too)… we quickly decided that it needed to be changed.  Of course I couldn’t change the colour, but we added some “touches of us” to it.  We put a strip down the car and put the word Mustang on either side of the car.  It cost us a little bit of money, but it was worth it to make the car seem less “common”.  I also hate “common” LOL

 

4.  I love the “dorm room” look in our place… or at least that is what I was told our place looked like by an old friend (not a friend anymore), so I hope it wasn’t an insult about our place.  I hate blank spaces on my wall and try to fill it up with many things.  Our bedroom even has a Disney theme to it… I love all things Disney and I think that makes me feel young and happy.  I tend to lean more to Mickey Mouse, but I do love Disney as a whole. 

5.  I love lights… lots and lots of lights.  Halloween lights, Christmas lights or any other kind of lights.  Currently my Halloween lights are up, but soon the Christmas lights will go up.  I think it just makes me feel bright and shiny (happy, shiny people??? LOL).  There is something about coloured lights that just make me happy.  I also love all the comments I get from people about all my lights.  Maybe one day an airplane will mistake our place for a landing strip and we will have a plane land in our back yard LOL

6.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE to travel.  Not sure if that makes me specifically fun… but it’s a part of who I am. 

7.  I love driving down the road with the convertible top down… and for no reason at all, just throw up my hands and yell YIPEE!!  What a feeling it is to drive with the wind in the your hair and the ability to put up your arms and the top of the car isn’t there… it’s so freeing.

8.  I love it when we (both Doug and I) totally mess with peoples perception of us.  I think when people first meet us, they think we are a certain type of person, and soon find that we are not like that.  I love the looks on people’s faces when I say something that they don’t expect… yup… that is a lot of fun.

Well, we are back from our vacation. What a great time we had. Here was our itinerary…

Seattle – 1 night

DisneyWorld – 3 nights

Carnival Dream Cruise – 7 night Western Caribbean, ports including Cozumel, Roatan, Belize & Costa Maya

Florida – 4 nights – sights including Kennedy Space Center

Seattle – 1 night

What a great vacation and now we are back home to regular life. I don’t mind that too much because it gives us the opportunity to save up for our next vacation.

We have been struggling with coming back home to the pains of being here. We are trying to figure out how to deal with that. Doug posted on his blog kinda how we feel about it all, and so I won’t try to go over it again. Doug's Blog

Something I thought of today though, and I am going to try to explain it. It all started with reading a blog of a friend of mine who quoted a verse from the Book of Alma… well… I know my Bible a little, and I know there is no such book in the “regular” Bible, so I asked her were it came from and she told me it was from the Book of Mormon. She told me they use this book as a companion to the Bible. That made me think… and so we chatted about it with my parents for awhile and then started to do a bit of research about it. Doug gave us a quick history lesson of what he found out and then we left it alone until our drive home from my parents.

I was having some issues with believing some of how it came about, but then I thought about it a bit more and realized… what does it matter? Does it change my relationship with Jesus on if someone else believes that there are other books written about Jesus? Not a chance! And who am I to say it is true or not? It doesn’t change my Christian views, so why should I worry about it or even put any thought to it? What I see as the “regular” Bible is just a piece of our Christian heritage, and who knows what else is missing from what we were taught. Even the Bible can be interpreted differently and if you don’t believe that, look around and see all the religions that have stemmed from different versions of our “regular” Bible.

Now you ask… why am I mentioning this? Well because the above belief will probably get me in a lot of trouble in the “regular” church who believe solely in the “regular” Bible and have no flexibility in what else is out there. How do we survive in that type of structure? I don’t think we can because in the end someone will always want us to change to their way of thinking and I have no desire for that. I want to have an open mind to all that is out there and the various versions of what a relationship will look like with our Saviour, Jesus Christ. I want my relationship with Jesus to be built on my faith and not what others tell me it should look like. He is excepting of everyone, and so I have to follow that same rule of thinking. So unless church has changed in the last little while, I don’t think we will fit in much. So… what do we do about this? How do we go about surviving here in White Rock with all the bad memories of friends past? How do we go about making new friends that believe in Jesus Christ and not have to succumb to the “regular” church way of thinking? Well… I think we need to have a bit of change of heart… stop looking at what isn’t to be (Mexico) and look at what might be… where do we find this? I was thinking that Doug and I need to find our hearts desire… what makes us tick? Is there an area that we feel God is leading us? If we stay in our cave and hide away from people, we will never show the love of God to people. How do we go about showing what God is all about to the people in our community? How do we show how loving God/Jesus is to everyone, from all walks of life? It won’t be by staying locked up in our house and it won’t be by being pissed off in church all the time… so where do we go? We need to focus on where this might be… no matter how small it is. Do we volunteer somewhere in something that we have a heart for? I know for now it isn’t in church because so far all church has been is a place where they want the members to all think the same. So we need to look outside the box (or church) and find it somewhere. We need people around us… people of all walks of life… we must be needed somewhere… we need to find that place and ask God to guide us in the right direction.

We need to forget about the past and work on the present and future…we need to see where Jesus wants us because he isn’t going to give us this interesting view of thinking and then hide us away in our little condo in White Rock. I am very curious to see where he will guide us, too, because I want to be open to where He thinks we should be. I think it will be small though, because we seem to be good at the little things. I want to look towards this and see what areas we are good at. Maybe work with seniors? Maybe with kids? Homeless people? Single parents? Cooking for others? Teaching computers? Teaching English? Doing some bookkeeping? Playing guitar (that is Doug)… who knows… we have some talent… wonder if they can be used to show how wonderful God/Jesus is and what a great friend he is. I love him with all my heart and I want the world to know that he is amazing and loves everyone no matter what.

So… where do I start?  I met these people 40 years ago, but I don’t remember the details since I was only a newborn… yup, Vic & Chris are my parents.  I am the first born and their guinea pig HA HA HA!!   I think I have always enjoyed my parents company.  Yes, there are moments in one’s life that parents can cramp ones style, but I don’t think it was too often.   What are some of my memories of them…. my dad playing piano to us before going to bed, my mom praying with us, reading to us or even singing to us, our various camping trips (i didn’t say they were all good memories LOL), trekking up the mountain to check out our water supply, the many times my parents put up with our games, skits, etc.

My dad is the math person PLUS he also is a music person.  I got my math skills from my dad, but I didn’t get the music skills.  I LOVE music though, but don’t have the same talent as he does with music.  I do play piano though (SHHHH… don’t tell anyone) and used to enjoy it a lot.  I prefer to let someone else do the playing though… much easier for me.   My dad has a love for teenagers and as a teacher, he is great with them.  It took a bit for him to get used to the idea of me being a teenager though.  Everyone told him that once I became a teenager everything would go downhill, so I think he was expecting me to be a lot worse than what I was… yup… I did do some not so great things as a teenager… I listened to secular music (Bryan Adams, ect) AND I had some posters of movie stars on my wall.   I think he eventually figured out I wasn’t that bad as a teenager and he softened up a bit.  If I remember correctly, he had a hard time saying “I love you” to me for the first year or so when I turned 13… all those stupid people that scared my dad… hope Karma bit you in the ass.  Once he got over that “teenage” hurdle, things went pretty good… other than the normal teenage thing.  Turns out me and my dad don’t work well together and if you want proof… ask us to pile a woodpile together.   Now that can bring it oodles of memories and most not that great, but at least we can both laugh at that now.

In grade 10 my class did a student exchange with a group of students on the east coast… there is no way I would have done this without my dad.  He was one of the teachers that went along, and it made it much easier on me.  I won’t go into detail about that whole adventure as that would take many posts and probably some therapy to get over.  But all I will say is that I survived it because my dad was there.  Otherwise I think I would have asked to be sent home earlier.  When I turned 16, he bought a motorbike and we learned to ride it together.  What cool parents to let their daughter have a motorbike and if I remember correctly, when we moved, he bought the street bike and we learned to ride that too.  I got that bike for my grad present.  Now my dad wasn’t too amused when I became engaged at 17 and when we went to Hawaii as a family (and left poor Doug behind), he proceeded to take me out for lunch and explain that maybe I should play the field a bit… totally understandable for a dad to worry about their 17 year old getting engaged to a 23 year old who was my first boyfriend.   Let’s just say that Doug’s background didn’t ease my dad’s worries… so again, totally understandable for the apprehension.

My mom is the artist in the family.  She comes from a long line of artists.  I have a number of paintings of my Oma’s in our house.  My mom does some amazing sculpting with clay and can paint too.  My sister Andrea got that talent too, along with her son Owen.  It’s cool to see how those talents can run in the family from one generation to another.  I did NOT get that talent at all.  I can paint a wall if I have to, but that is the extent of my artistic talent.   My mom was a teacher before I came along, but decided to be a stay at home mom once I showed my cute face.   I think it was rough on my parents financially with only having 1 income, but they managed and we sure appreciate having a parent home with us.  Granted because my dad was a teacher, we had both our parents home after school.   My mom is quiet (probably where I get that from) and is very relaxed.  She wasn’t the type of mom who made our lunches for school, or even made our breakfasts… granted again, my dad was a teacher, so he was the one that helped us in that area, but for the most part, we made our own breakfasts and lunches.   My mom does not like to cook, but thankfully my dad does, so we didn’t starve.  I think each family needs to figure out their strengths and work with that.   My mom was good at cleaning up after my dad though (in the kitchen), which was needed LOL.   My mom and dad both tucked us in night, but it was my mom who would read us the bedtime stories (Cross and the Switchblade).  She would pray with us and just listen to us when we needed someone to talk to in the darkness of the night.   She read us all sorts of books to us. 

My mom was the calm one when it came to me becoming a teenager.   Ok… mostly calm… my first time driving with my mom didn’t go so well and it was soon after that when they decided I would get driving lessons instead of them teaching me.  Smart move on their part.   I don’t recall many issues with my mom when I was a teenager.  I am sure she can come up with a few, but I think my mom did pretty good as a mom of a teenager.   AS the picture shows, my mom was always good at the strong supportive part of being a parent.  It was great that she was a stay at home mom.

My parents were great parents (for the most part… just ask me about Rye bread)… they took us with them most places even though they could have gotten a babysitter instead.   They allowed us the freedom to be who we wanted to be, even if it meant a small kid would put their feet up in the pews at church in the choir.  They didn’t conform to what society said they should be and with that, raised 3 girls as individuals.  They taught us sex education at an early age so that we understood what our bodies where about and about some of the dangers of predators.   They taught me about faith in God and how easy it actually is.  They didn’t sugar coat adult life and because of that, I was fairly prepared for what the world would throw at me as I grew into an adult.  My parents always told me I was beautiful and because of that, I have a fairly decent self esteem.  They practised what they preached… they were not the type of parents who said one thing and did a totally different thing.  We learned from example and that is a great legacy for a parent to give their kids. 

We have done some stupid things as adults and my parents have bailed us out.  We owe them big time for that.  I think for the most part, our relationship is as friends and not as parents any more.   They support us in all that we do and are a shoulder to cry on when we need it.  They have seen us at our worst (Mom & Dad… think New York LOL) and have seen us at our best.  They have been with us through it all and we are forever grateful for that.  I love having them as best friends.

We are leaving on vacation in 8 sleeps and it is going to be weird to be without them for this vacation.  We have done our big vacations with them for a number of years now, and this will be the first one in a long time that we haven’t done with them.  We will really miss them.  Next year we go to the Panama together, so that will make up for it.    I think my most favourite memory I have vacationing with them is going through Central Park with the horse and carriage.  We were bundled up in blankets in the carriage.  I loved sharing my first time in New York with my parents.   I also enjoyed taking my parents to Disneyland for their first time.   Instead of the parents taking the kids to Disneyland, we were taking them to Disneyland.  That was fun.   So many memories, so much fun… here is to many more memories together.  Thanks Mom & Dad (Chris & Vic) for being great friends, wonderful parents and such supportive people to Doug and I.  We are blessed and thank God every day for you guys.

I am going to take a break from the “friends” blogs and just post about the going on’s in our life. We are off on our vacation in 2 weeks. I think I have posted what we are doing before, so I won’t repeat myself. I am so excited about DisneyWorld… it’s my first time there. I have been to Disneyland a few times, but really looking forward to DisneyWorld (and so is Mickey Mouse). Our cruise will be great. It isn’t a long cruise, only 7 days, but that is ok. We are going to enjoy Florida a lot too.

I have met some amazing people so far online that we will be cruising with. Aislinn and Tim are the couple I think we can most relate too and so we are really looking forward to spending some time with them. If all goes well, maybe a trip to Salt Lake City will be in store. I love telling people about my new Christian Mormon friends… wow, didn’t think I could get that many interesting looks from people LOL. It is amazing how people place others into a box of beliefs… Mormons I guess aren’t allowed to be Christ followers? Who knew… LOL Glad I know differently. I have learned in the last few years that there is no box and that we are all unique in our beliefs, even within the realm of Christianity.

My other online friends that we will be meeting are Gina, Bernie, Julie, Al, Mary, Debra, Jan, Bryan, Aonika… and the list goes on. Can’t wait to meet them all. Gina and Bernie have been very loyal Cruise clients and even Julie has booked something with me. I do really appreciate it and hopefully I do a great job as a Travel Agent for them. Most of the people we have been chatting on Facebook for over a year and it will be great to finally meet them face to face. I hope we will be friends even after the cruise. I want friends all over the US so we have people to visit when we eventually see all the places I want to see in the States.

Well… back to the going ons… well… other than getting prepared for our vacation, not a whole lot else. Our plants on the patio are doing well, we are really enjoying our place and the job as Resident Managers is going well. So most of our time is spent working and relaxing. I have everything all organized for our vacation. The vacation binder is all set up, cash is put aside, CC are usable and I am ready to go away to Florida and then the Caribbean. We are Cruising with my cousins and their 2 kids and that will be a blast. The three of us turned 40 this year, so this is a celebration of sorts.

Doug is currently putting movies and TV shows onto the netbook so we have stuff to watch on our flight. We ordered a bigger battery for it so it will last for the whole flight. We are bringing the lap top along too so I can do some bookkeeping while vacationing and upload our pictures to the laptop. I sure love technology. This way we can also keep in touch with family and friends, and work of course too. It’s been a few years since we vacationed like this without my parents. Usually they join us, but it just didn’t work out this year. Next year we are doing a 15 night Panama Cruise together, so that will be fun.

So I was thinking about doing the next “friends” blog on my parents. They are our best friends, so I think they should be mentioned in my blog. So I will work on that and hopefully have the up before we leave on vacation. Just in case you didn’t know, we are spending a week in Florida and a week in the Caribbean… yup… we will be sunning and relaxing in the sun… well… I guess Disneyworld may not be relaxing to some LOL

I would have to go back into my photo albums to figure out when we first met Bonnie & Grace, but I think it’s been at least 5 years that we have known them.  They are good friends that like to go cruising together.  When you don’t have a spouse to go cruising with, you need to rope your friends into wanting to go too so that you can go vacationing for cheaper than paying a single rate.  We met them on a cruise and have been friends ever since.  They live in California which of course is where we want to move to. 

  Bonnie has an amazing sense of humour and she has endless amounts of one liners.  She has suffered with a number of illnesses in her lifetime but through it all she still has a smile on her face.  We got to see her place earlier this year and it suits her perfectly.  She has such a great love of life and wants to try it all.  We had the best time with her a few years ago on a Caribbean cruise out of New York.  What a blast that was and Doug had a great time going Snuba’ing with her.  Maybe someday we will go on a cruise with her again.

Grace is fun to go vacationing with.   We have been cruising with Grace and her friend Ruth too, which was a blast.   Grace loves to organize things and does a great job with lists, organizing and keeping everyone in order.  It was great to have Grace show us Santa Barbara when we went and did our Southern California road trip.  Grace loves people and seems very relaxed with just about anyone.   It has been a lot of fun vacationing with Grace and hopefully someday we will do it again. 

As you can tell, there isn’t as much I can write about Bonnie & Grace as we don’t live close enough to each other to really get to know each other that well.   Even so, the vacations we have done together have been so much fun.   I hope our friendship will last a long long time and so that we can travel together until we are all too old to leave our old folks home HA HA HA.

Thanks for being such great cruising friends. 

We met Kraeg and Anna in May 2009 when we moved into the condo at The Morgan. Kraeg was on the strata at the time and he was as frustrated as we werewith what was going on there. At least we had the option to move if we wanted, as we were only renters, but they were owners and didn't have much choice but to stay. With some encouraging of the strata, we decided to apply for the job as Resident Managers and I think within a few weeks, we got the job. If it wasn't for him and Anna, we would have quit that job a lot sooner than what we did.

It was really cool living that close to friends. When we would go over to their place, I was able to go in my slippers and not even have to put shoes on. They have an amazing looking place and everything is so neat and organized. Not that I think our place should look like that because I can't handle living in neat and organized. I don't mind organized, but I like the dorm room look. Pictures all over my walls, crazy things hanging in places (my Furbies in the bedroom) and of course my Mickey Mouse themed bedroom. Anyways... I digress... I love their place and how they (I mean Anna though) decorated. They had the same configuration of a condo as us, but they took out a wall and made their 3 bedroom condo into a 2 bedroom. They had a unit facing the opposite direction as us, so between the 4 of us, we had a good view of the goings-on in the condo area. It made for some late night meet ups outside in the courtyard LOL. There was never a dull moment living at The Morgan.

If you look at the 4 of us, you will notice that we are the polar opposites. They are tall, slender, beautiful people, and well... Doug and I are not 2 of those three LOL. Our homes are polar opposites too... we have the dorm look, and well... they don't. Even when getting to know them I kept thinking that we just were mismatched for friends. I kept waiting for them to stop doing stuff with us because Doug and I are a little off the wall. Another big difference is that Doug and I are Christians, and they aren't and in fact Kraeg is very skeptical about Christianity (don't blame him) and so sometimes that isn't a good mix. But we are all ok with each others beliefs and don't try to convince each other that they are wrong. Just thought of another difference... see... we have a lot... they love outdoorsy, exercisy stuff and well... we don't LOL

As time went on, we needed each other to vent about the stuff going on at the condo, and along with that we became good friends. Granted, I don't know how good of a friend we are since we still haven't heard the story of why Kraeg spells his name the way he does. Anyways... I digress again... back to the story... The Morgan... that place brought us together. We needed each other to vent about the crap going on and we also got to learn about each other. We found out that Kraeg and Anna like Scotch that is hard to find in the states and when we do find it, we can't buy it for them because we have no way to get it on the airplane. Rarely did we watch tv or movies together when we visited. It was always chatting and getting to know each other. We loved that and felt very safe at their place. They were not judgmental about our choices at all. They were the second people we told about our decision to move to Mexico (my parents where first of course). They were very supportive of it and were even excited for us. They were the first we emailed when we found out we had to come home without the job. Because they lived so close, they were the ones we got comfort from when we needed shoulder to cry on.

Again, other than my parents, they are the only ones that know the full story and heard all the cries of our hearts when it came to Mexico. They supported us in ways they can not imagine and we are forever grateful for that. Even though I figured in the beginning of our friendship that it wouldn't last because we were so different, it has turned out to be a great friendship. It hasn't been as close as it was before because we moved out of The Morgan, but they have been busy with opening up a new business too, and I know how much work that is, so hopefully when it gets more routine for them, we will get together more. Kraeg and Anna have been great friends and it has been great getting to know them in the last year (and a bit). I do hope it will be one of those long time friendships and even with our differences, that we will be forever friends.

I do want to mention one thing that we do have in common... we don't have kids (by choice). It isn't as if we don't like kids, but we just don't want them 24/7. It is always cool to meet others like us in that way. One of the things that I will always remember about them is the Christmas card they gave us (I still have it). They considered not giving it to us because they had done it up before they found out we weren't moving to Mexico, but they decided to give it to us anyway. It has some peso's in it for taco's on them, and also a great note about how they will miss the blondie and the red head, along with the condo that had the most Christmas lights. Oh, and and it was a Mickey Mouse card... it didn't take them long to figure out who we liked LOL. We will keep that card in our hope chest and will treasure it always.

We are wishing them all the best in their new business venture and hopefully it will become so successful that they can retire and buy a place in Mexico and they will hire us to be the caretakers LOL. We do wish them all the best though in the business 4 cats

Here is to many breakfasts together and many late night visits again when things settle down for you guys. We love having you as friends and I hope our relationship keeps on growing.