Beginning a New Year

A new year has begun. As always, with a new year, there are fresh perspectives. Much has changed as I begin a fresh palette.

I am a grandmother for the second time. My daughter, Monica, gave birth in July, 2005, to her second child. His name is Elijah. She is experiencing a teenager (her first child, Connor, is fourteen) and a baby at the same time! She is thirty-six years old and this is her second marriage. There have been many adjustments for her new family. Connor had been living with his father and only spending time with her for five weeks in the summer and either Christmas or Easter vacation. When his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack when Monica was eight months pregnant, Connor came to live full time with her and Sam, her husband, in Houston, Texas.

I, too, have seen changes in recent years. After thrity-seven years of teaching, I retired in June of 2003. My husband, who is also retired, and I have begun to travel. We have taken cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean, Hawaii, the Panama Canal, and the Mexican Riviera. Needless to say, we have found this to be the best years of our life. I will be turning sixty-three in February and my husband, Arno, will be sixty-six in March. We recently returned from a cross-county car trip to Texas to see our grand children and witness the baby's first Christmas. Pictures are of that happy occasion.