So, what else is new
Well, time does sure fly. It has been over a year since my last post. Did we drop off the face of the earth, not quite. Much has happened but I just never got around to putting it down in written form. So, here is my yearly holiday letter - just a little bit late.
We became grandparents for the second time in April - just 6 weeks early from the due date. We had planned our schedule so that we could be there when our grandson -Elijah - was born. Did he cooperate - of course not. There we were, on a B&B assignment, when we got the call early one morning from Laurie that they were on the way to the hospital. Elijah may have come out small, but has made up for it during the last nine months. He has just started to crawl and now can get into things easier. Laurie is just thrilled.
Our other grandson, Josiah, is a little jealous of the attention that Laurie & Nic need to give Elijah. For almost 2 years Josiah was the one in the spotlight. Now he has to share. When we were out visiting them after the baby was born, we tried to do lots of things that were just big boy stuff to help with the adjustment. We went to the zoo and the Santa Cruz beach and of course rode on the cars. I think we had as much fun as Josiah. Josiah loves his brother and is always trying to get him to talk to us on the phone when we call. All we get from Elijah is gurgling noises, but Josiah makes up for the lack of conversation from Elijah. He talks a mile a minute. His latest thing is to ask Laurie if she has her cell phone with her when they get ready to leave the house.
Our surrogate Colorado Springs Family is also doing well. Justin & Cindy are busy keeping up with Nate (who also turned 2 last year). With all of our traveling, we didn't get to see them as much last year, but hope to be around more this year to babysit and get together.
Our last two sponsor students (Haley & Yulan) graduated last year from Colorado College. Haley went to Yemen for 3 months and now is living and working in San Francisco. Yulan is back east in Boston at MIT working on her PHD. Of our other sponsor kids, three got married (Matt, Tom & Tanner). One (Stu) has had a baby. The rest are just playing the field and enjoying themselves.
This was going to be weird for us to not have college students around the house. There wouldn't be anyone to feed, no washing machine that needed to be put to use or car that needed to be borrowed. No runs to the airport to either take or pick up a student. Don't worry, Haley's parents provided us with the name of another student who parents also work in Saudi Arabia at the same company as Haley's father. The girl was going to start CC as a freshman last Sept. So now Liz has joined our sponsor family. This Sunday is the Super Bowl - College kids will be over and the pizza will be ordered as well as other snack stuff. All in all a great time will be had by all and the tradition of having college students around continues.
Our Interim keeping duties kept us busy during the year with assignments in Cripple Creek, Golden, San Antonio, & Sutter Creek. The last assignment in Sutter Creek was for over 70 days over a three month period. In between the times off, during this last assignment, we were able to spend time in CA visiting Laurie and her family, our cousins in Novato, Howard's sister Marsha and her daughter's family in the LA area, & friends in both CA & NV and did a lot of wine tasting (and purchasing) in both Napa, Amador, & Calaveras Counties. It seemed like we were on a perpetual vacation from our home. We lived out of a suitcase for almost 2/3 of the year (225 days). In addition to watching other peoples B&B's we also conducted a number of classes for both aspiring Innkeepers and aspiring Interim Innkeepers.
Lynda had some exciting times with a major surgery in Jan. 2005 for an intestinal bowel obstruction. She also celebrated her 60th birthday in what all of our family & friends will call the Bar-B-Que from you know where. We had a great time, just had to put up with outdoor temperatures over 100 degrees in Laurie's back yard in San Jose.
This year, Howard becomes an official AK - He will turn 65 and has already applied for his Medicaid card. Will this slow him down any - of course not.
However, we have decided that we really would like to spend a little more time actually sleeping in our own beds. To this end, we have formed a new business. Now in addition to taking care of other peoples B&B's when they are on vacation, we will also be doing some Pet Sitting and Dog Walking. This will allow us to remain close to home but still bring in dollars. We love animals and miss not having a dog around the house. So, we will just adopt other peoples pets and play with them. Our company is called Furry Friends Pet Sitters. We will take care of other peoples pets in the owners home when they need to be away (either during the day or while on vacation).
Pet Sitting is an organized national professional business that is growing by leaps and bounds. It actually was easier to get Pet Sitting Liability Insurance & Bonding than it was to get Interim Innkeeping Liability Insurance. We will however need to take a Pet First Aid Class - not quite sure how you give Pet CPR just yet, but I'm sure we will find out at the Red Cross Class we have signed up for.
So dear friends and family, have a great year. I promise to be a little more diligent with posts. I'm sure that we will have some interesting stories to tell in the coming year.
Hugs to all,
Toot & Teaser
We became grandparents for the second time in April - just 6 weeks early from the due date. We had planned our schedule so that we could be there when our grandson -Elijah - was born. Did he cooperate - of course not. There we were, on a B&B assignment, when we got the call early one morning from Laurie that they were on the way to the hospital. Elijah may have come out small, but has made up for it during the last nine months. He has just started to crawl and now can get into things easier. Laurie is just thrilled
Our other grandson, Josiah, is a little jealous of the attention that Laurie & Nic need to give Elijah. For almost 2 years Josiah was the one in the spotlight. Now he has to share. When we were out visiting them after the baby was born, we tried to do lots of things that were just big boy stuff to help with the adjustment. We went to the zoo and the Santa Cruz beach and of course rode on the cars. I think we had as much fun as Josiah. Josiah loves his brother and is always trying to get him to talk to us on the phone when we call. All we get from Elijah is gurgling noises, but Josiah makes up for the lack of conversation from Elijah. He talks a mile a minute. His latest thing is to ask Laurie if she has her cell phone with her when they get ready to leave the house.
Our surrogate Colorado Springs Family is also doing well. Justin & Cindy are busy keeping up with Nate (who also turned 2 last year). With all of our traveling, we didn't get to see them as much last year, but hope to be around more this year to babysit and get together.
Our last two sponsor students (Haley & Yulan) graduated last year from Colorado College. Haley went to Yemen for 3 months and now is living and working in San Francisco. Yulan is back east in Boston at MIT working on her PHD. Of our other sponsor kids, three got married (Matt, Tom & Tanner). One (Stu) has had a baby. The rest are just playing the field and enjoying themselves.
This was going to be weird for us to not have college students around the house. There wouldn't be anyone to feed, no washing machine that needed to be put to use or car that needed to be borrowed. No runs to the airport to either take or pick up a student. Don't worry, Haley's parents provided us with the name of another student who parents also work in Saudi Arabia at the same company as Haley's father. The girl was going to start CC as a freshman last Sept. So now Liz has joined our sponsor family. This Sunday is the Super Bowl - College kids will be over and the pizza will be ordered as well as other snack stuff. All in all a great time will be had by all and the tradition of having college students around continues.
Our Interim keeping duties kept us busy during the year with assignments in Cripple Creek, Golden, San Antonio, & Sutter Creek. The last assignment in Sutter Creek was for over 70 days over a three month period. In between the times off, during this last assignment, we were able to spend time in CA visiting Laurie and her family, our cousins in Novato, Howard's sister Marsha and her daughter's family in the LA area, & friends in both CA & NV and did a lot of wine tasting (and purchasing) in both Napa, Amador, & Calaveras Counties. It seemed like we were on a perpetual vacation from our home. We lived out of a suitcase for almost 2/3 of the year (225 days). In addition to watching other peoples B&B's we also conducted a number of classes for both aspiring Innkeepers and aspiring Interim Innkeepers.
Lynda had some exciting times with a major surgery in Jan. 2005 for an intestinal bowel obstruction. She also celebrated her 60th birthday in what all of our family & friends will call the Bar-B-Que from you know where. We had a great time, just had to put up with outdoor temperatures over 100 degrees in Laurie's back yard in San Jose.
This year, Howard becomes an official AK - He will turn 65 and has already applied for his Medicaid card. Will this slow him down any - of course not.
However, we have decided that we really would like to spend a little more time actually sleeping in our own beds. To this end, we have formed a new business. Now in addition to taking care of other peoples B&B's when they are on vacation, we will also be doing some Pet Sitting and Dog Walking. This will allow us to remain close to home but still bring in dollars. We love animals and miss not having a dog around the house. So, we will just adopt other peoples pets and play with them. Our company is called Furry Friends Pet Sitters. We will take care of other peoples pets in the owners home when they need to be away (either during the day or while on vacation).
Pet Sitting is an organized national professional business that is growing by leaps and bounds. It actually was easier to get Pet Sitting Liability Insurance & Bonding than it was to get Interim Innkeeping Liability Insurance. We will however need to take a Pet First Aid Class - not quite sure how you give Pet CPR just yet, but I'm sure we will find out at the Red Cross Class we have signed up for.
So dear friends and family, have a great year. I promise to be a little more diligent with posts. I'm sure that we will have some interesting stories to tell in the coming year.
Hugs to all,
Toot & Teaser
posted by Toot and Teaser | 3:51 PM
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