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  love, Val

 Today we baked a cake for Jay’s birthday tomorrow.  Julia did the decorating. And it was the Winter Dance and these two went.  Aww, look how cute you guys are.  And then we went downtown to where my sales manager was playing jazz.   The food was interesting and delicious and the music wonderful. And that

Today we took down the Christmas Village, a good job done, packed it all in the boxes and stored it. Then we took all the little candles nightlights out of all the windows.  I usually leave those two things up long after the Christmas tree is taken down, and now it’s time to put those

Late this fall, the brochure arrived in the mail.   I was in my big Getting Things Done mood, and was susceptible to their advertising:  Learn to swim for safety, and it’s warm here–no blue-lipped, shivering kids waiting for their turn, small class sizes. Well, they have not disappointed.  The teacher is enthusiastic and friendly.  It’s

It was John’s idea to go today, maybe check out some options for the dock at the cabin. t.c. posed for us by that big monkey-looking dude, but he was more aware of the statue on the other side. Here’s a picture from the musical program yesterday.  He sang great, all the kids did.  The program was

 This is from the afternoon before.  This kid is SO EXCITED she’s been driving me nuts for three days. This one is much more chill. Waiting for church–we were early because the guys had to usher. She’s buried in the closet, but she’s happy there. Finally we could go upstairs. It was beautiful, Christmas story,

And as it has just passed midnight, yes we have. When we got home I read her my old favorite, “Bedtime for Frances,” and she loved it, even grabbed the story book to kiss Frances who was not going to sleep.  p.j. introduced me to these children, “That’s my grandmaw.”  They laughed. Julia gets so

It’s snowing tonight, first snowfall of the winter. Here are some pictures.  Snow is great, photographs well.  Too bad it’s such a mess and the months of winter loom. Okay, this little girl told me about her boots, “Spiderwebs are in them.”  I told her to vacuum them tomorrow and then see if they still

For the most part, the software would not allow me to insert any space between the photos for comments. It’s one of those,”Talk among yourselves,” things.  Unexplained. But that’s okay.  Less is often more.   Above is a picture our neighbor took about twelve years ago. The little exhausted guy wiping his brow is James. You

We had this whole blank day, and yesterday I was determined we not waste it.  Days like this–good weather, free time, far too rare. So we hatched a plan to head to an apple orchard and found this one online, and this morning drove out there in person. Dannell and her guys joined us and