Christmas with Madeline, Roman and Ivan

 We did our traditional Christmas activities.  I made a new stocking for Nathan since his stocking got wrecked a few years ago.  

The one on the right is the new one.

Madeline, Roman, and Ivan drove down Christmas Eve but we did not see them until dinner on Christmas day.  Nathan & I had a great time cooking dinner.  It was a "thanksgiving-type" dinner, with sweet potato brulee, mushroom stuffing, red wine cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, teriyaki salmon, bread, and pecan pie,  What a yummy meal.  

1-year-old Ivan

Our get-togethers were around Ivan's sleep schedule.  

Merry Christmas from Blanca.  

We had snow Christmas day!!

Yup, we had snow.

Ivan

The day after Christmas we got together for lunch near the AirBnB that Madeline and family stayed at.  Then they joined us for dinner.  The next day we met for lunch before they headed back to Bellevue. What a nice visit. 

Rebecca missed it since she was still at the San Francisco airport.  She has just been approached once by a security guard, who gave her a free bus pass to a homeless shelter. She ignored this.  It has been 6 weeks.

Zoo Lights

 We met Gretchen on Friday, December 10th to go to the zoo lights. We had timed entry tickets for a "walk through" day. Some days are set up for drive through only.  We met at the front area, thinking that we would do dinner first and then walk through the zoo but that ended out not working.  The restaurant near the front entrance was closed.  So we got hot naughty beverages to tide us over.  

There was a restaurant open, halfway though the walk.  We sat down for a while and ate.  

George, Gretchen, Nathan

It was a nice event.  It is always a pleasure to spend time with Gretchen.

A Sad Day.

 Our cat, Gemini, has been failing for quite some time. She go down hill and then she would perk up, but she finally hit a point when she was no longer eating.  So we decided that it was time to end her suffering. She was 17 years old and had always been a very playful kitty.  It was a tough decision.  We made an appointment for Thursday, Dec 9th.  Nathan was able to come as well.  They normally do not allow 3 people to go in at one time to the vet, but they made an exception. 

We will miss her.  She was a very sweet kitty.