Happy Family Day (First Anniversary of Willowing) !

Our family, home for one whole year! We had a party at our local restaurant, the Brookside (under which runs a lovely brook which spills into a waterfall). Other celebrations included riding in a wagon for groceries, dancing with scrunchies in our hair, and eating dinner by candlelight.

Dog Love, Dog Happiness, Dog Comfort

After a walk ... the pillows and couch cover obviously were not comfortable enough and needed rearranging. Then, the cold outside necessitated getting as close to the wood stove as possible (and yes, it is hot in the picture). Augustus Wiggles "Gus" (left) is Queensland Heeler x Black Lab; Chloe is Chocolate Lab x Coyote. She is primitive, exotic, and gorgeous. Gus is sweet--epitomizing a loving, cuddly D, O, G.

Holiday Celebration

Our bank brings in real reindeer each Christmas to take children (and their grownups) on sleigh rides. After a fearful meeting with Santa Clause (not pictured) we headed for Chicago to spend Christmas with honorary grandpa Stan (and his family). Willow learned what "presents" are in about 3 minutes (and promptly zeroed in on packages wrapped for her, i.e., the same wrapping paper).

Our Little Naturalist (more New Mexico)

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (Sandhill Cranes and other waterfowl make their winter home here). Miss W really enjoyed looking at feathers through the microscope. Saw gobs and gobs of Sandhills and Snowgeese during a drive around the refuge.

More November (Visiting The Stein Men)

Jeremy, our oldest (the third brother), is sitting in the middle. My arm is around Nicholas, and off to the very left is Tyler (Jeremy's boys, i.e., Chris' grandsons--hey, I'm not ready to be a grandmother!). We are sitting outside the visitor center at Saguaro National Park (where Jeremy's step-dad works).























The pictures below were take (of Chris' grandsons) at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.