January Post

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We certainly enjoyed Christmas and New Year's with the best part having Dan home. It's hard to believe we are now on the other side of the holidays. All the time and energy we put into the holidays and bam--gone before you know it!

Dan putting his decorations on the tree.

The holidays were good to us, though. Dan was only home for just over a week, so that was hard. And he had studio work to do over the holidays. I gave him Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, but the rest of the time he was home he had to work on this book for studio. We were hoping he could fit in a trip to Long Island and also go to Berkshire East to go skiing with his Uncle Mike, but unfortunately neither happened.

Ed on his laptop

We spent Christmas Eve with Ed's family in Ware. Little William who turned 2 in November was so much fun to see. He is such a cutie!! Christmas day was spent with my family in Amherst. The kids are certainly getting older (the youngest is 7) but it was a fun day. The week after Christmas we went to dinner with Dan's godfather John and his wife Emily at the Steaming Tender in Palmer. That was a very nice night out with good company and exceptional food. If you haven't been there, I recommend it.

Dan and Grandma

Ed continued his biweekly chemo treatments...no change there. He had a CT scan last Monday and I was going to accompany him to his appointment on Thursday to get the results, but Dr. Bowers' office called on Tuesday to report no changes. So we continue the same treatment and Ed continues to have no serious side effects (just body aches, but don't we all have those at this age?)!

On January 7th we went to see Cake Boss with my sister Cathy, her kids Lexi and Nick, and "just-like-family" DeeDee () and her daughters Emma and Amanda. We had a good time and it was a fun evening.

Ed with "the girls" (Emma, Lexi, Amanda) at Cake Boss.

On the evening of MLK Day, Ed and I had a nice dinner out at Judie's Restaurant in Amherst. Can you believe Ed has never eaten there before? Another very good dinner and reasonably priced!

So January and post-holidays are a bit more calm. Dan is back in Bristol, returning after new year's since he's taking a class during January break (plus now that he's got an apartment, he was paying rent regardless). It makes sense that he's knocking off a class, but I miss him terribly and wish he could have been home longer than 10 days...but I guess I need to be thankful for those 10 days!

The tree was taken down a week ago and Christmas decorations are all put away. We're pretty much staying inside out of the cold. The snow has been incredible and we're possibly getting more this week. Thankfully Ed has a plow so he does the driveway and we've got a snow blower so he does the walkways as well. Me, I shovel the front and back decks (really, I do!)!

Me, shoveling...okay posing for pictures really.

Ed

In the first week of February, the Cancer Care program at Cooley is having a "Winter Celebration". It's supposed to be a nice evening of fun and food so Ed RSVPed that we'd be going. In the meantime, we enjoy the slower pace of winter. Ed continues his biweekly treatments and life continues to treat us well. We hope the same for all of you.