2008 Leo Christmas newsletter

Dear loved ones, Merry Christmas, everyone! What an amazing year this has been, full of the Lord’s blessings and joys, and even some unexpected surprises. We hope your year has been blessed as well, and that you’re already enjoying the season and its reason. We are happy to announce that our family expanded again on August 27 with the birth of Leo Joshua Wiese, who entered the world at 7 lb. 9 oz. and 19¾ “ long. He is a beautiful, healthy, robust young man who captured our hearts from the moment we first saw him. Erika and Josh are instinctively great parents already, and they are unabashedly in love with their son. We are all enjoying our family’s first baby boy and the promise of trucks, trains, cars, sports, and dirt to come. In early April, our 9th family member is due—Jenni’s and Dave’s little boy or girl. Again, they’ve chosen not to find out the baby’s sex, and we’re all looking forward to meeting the next Leo grandchild. Zoey will turn 2 on Dec. 28 and is very enamored with her cousin Leo, so we have no doubts she’ll be an excellent, loving, helpful big sister. She is such a sweet little girl, funny and bright, and it’s an amazing experience to once again discover the world through the senses of this unconditionally loving child. Best of all, she LOVES her Papa and Didi! Our first surprise of the year was new kitchen appliances! We had talked on and off for several years about replacing our 24-year-old original appliances, but they just wouldn’t die. We finally just decided to go ahead and do it, replacing our dishwasher, oven, microwave, and cooktop with stainless steel gas cooktop, double ovens, over-the-cooktop microwave, and large-capacity dishwasher. It’s like a whole new kitchen, and I love cooking more than ever. Now we just need to accelerate the demise of “Gordo” (Tony’s term), our huge white refrigerator, so we can replace it with a smaller, stainless steel model, although Gordo is showing no signs of slowing down. Humphh. Our second, even more significant, surprise was Tony’s retirement from IBM in April after 34½ years! He wasn’t completely ready to retire, but things were getting more and more difficult at work, and his blood pressure was steadily climbing, so he decided it was time to leave on his terms. He was fully vested, and pensions had been frozen at the end of last year, so there really wasn’t much of an incentive to stay. He has fully embraced retirement, enjoying the ability to increase his running program, helping me around the house A LOT, and engaging in lots of projects he never had time for before. He also recently completed the H&R Block tax preparation course, so in January he will be working part time for Block. I’m still working from home as a medical transcriptionist and plan to continue at least until we are eligible for Social Security. I still love my work very much, although I can no longer type a full 8 hours a day because of my troublesome wrists. One of these days the pain will get bad enough for me to seek treatment, and then hopefully I’ll get back to full-time typing. I’m also working a few hours a month at the Curves where I work out, one Saturday morning and an occasional evening as needed. I love being part of the Curves sisterhood! In September, my sister Lisa, our cousin Pat, and I surprised our sister Alix with a 50th birthday trip to New York City. We had a ball together, and the most fun part of all was watching Alix as surprise after surprise was revealed to her. We took the “Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour”, saw “Wicked”, wandered through the Festival of San Gennaro in Little Italy, ate plenty of NY deli and Italian, and worshipped Sunday morning at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, home of the famous gospel choir. What an awesome experience it was to praise the Lord in harmony with our multicultural, multiracial sisters and brothers! It was a memorable trip for all of us, and the most wonderful time of sisterly bonding. This Christmas will be a little different for our family. Jenni, Dave, and Zoey, as well as Erika, Josh, and Leo, will be spending Christmas with their other families, so Tony and I have decided to take Millie in the Suburban and head down to Corpus Christi for a few days. We’ve never been to the Texas coast, and Millie has never been to the beach, so we’re hoping for a good time of R&R. Of course, we first need to find a hotel near the beach amenable to a very energetic, 80-pound, 17-month-old Great Dane mix puppy. No problem, right? I’d better get working on that right now. Here are some fun family blog sites to peruse when you have the time and inclination. There are many great pictures and diaries of what’s been going on in our respective families: www.lucysmamamia.blogspot.com (Mona’s blog) www.thecribbies.blogspot.com (Jenni’s, Dave’s, and Zoey’s blog) www.casahice.blogspot.com (Alix’s blog) lucysmamamia@hotmail.com (Mona’s e-mail) papatony1@hotmail.com (Tony’s e-mail) May the joy of the season bless you and yours with much health and happiness. Christ is born!!!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008!!!

We had a wonderful time with the entire family on Thanksgiving Day. We started the day with our 11th annual Dallas Turkey Trot, Zoey's second and Leo's first. The weather was perfect for a brisk 5k walk with more than 34,000 of our closest friends. :) After working up quite an appetite, we continued our TD tradition with breakfast at IHOP, followed by relaxation, football, and later dinner at Jenni's and Dave's. Here's a little sample of the day in pictures. The first one features Tony with Millie at the start of the race, Erika and Josh with Leo in his stroller, and the top of Zoey's face in the corner. The next picture was taken later in the day at the Cribbies', with Zoey adoring her little cousin Leo. Then there's our official Turkey Trot photo in our race day shirts. Finally, do click on the video of Leo cooing and talking to his bouncy seat friends. Precious!!

Autumn in Texas (sung to the tune of "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers")

Yeah, I know it's been a long time since I've posted. In fact, my sister Alix, blogger extraordinaire, gently reminded me of the fact last week. I've been really busy, and there hasn't really been anything earthshattering to blog about. We've had our two days of fall, and the leaves were quite pretty during those two days. We'll never have the gorgeous lush colors of upstate New York, where I grew up, but we do get a little color here in Texas. I took a few pictures on one of my walks with Millie last week, so here are a couple for you to enjoy. I have a ton of new pictures--here's the link to Flickr--and you can just imagine the primary subjects of said photos. Good guess -- Zoey and Leo, of course. Zoey is at such a fun age, and she loves to cooperate with a family of amateur photographers. Leo is getting to be such a chunk, so adorable! He's 2 1/2 months old now and is smiling and "talking" all the time. There's a problem with his photos, though. His eyes are so big and clear blue that even with red eye adjustments, his eyes always look sinister. They're really beautiful, but unless the flash is off, they glow red or white. We're all getting excited about the approaching holidays. We'll all be together for Thanksgiving, and we'll start the day with the Dallas Turkey Trot as usual, then do dinner and football later on at Jenni's and Dave's. We'll probably be scattered for Christmas, and it's wonderful that our kids can spend holidays with other family members. Tony and I are very happy with any times we're all able to be together, and we certainly don't mind "sharing"!! In a few weeks, start watching for the annual Leo family Christmas newsletter, which I'll post here. In the meantime, be sure to check Jenni's and Alix's blogs for fun stuff and photos.

Zoey spins!

We had a little family gathering at Jenni's and Dave's for the Steelers game (which they won--YAY!!!) this past Monday night, and Zoey was in rare form. She had eaten a good dinner and was very wound up. My sister Lisa always called this "roach mode" when her kids were little. When they're winding down toward bed time, they start acting like dying cockroaches, spinning and wearing themselves out. The video is in two parts because it was accidentally stopped during recording, so watch the first one, then the second. Don't I have the absolutely most adorable grandchildren ever?!!!

Warski Women Take New York By Storm!

I had planned on writing a large journal entry about our wonderful NY trip, but my sister Alix, blogger extraordinaire, got to it first. Hers is so good I'm mainly going to just defer to it, www.casahice.blogspot.com. I did post a bunch of photos on Flickr, though, which pretty much go along with Alix's chronicle. Basically, my sister Lisa and I planned a surprise trip to NY as a 50th birthday gift for Alix, and happily, our cousin Pat joined the fun. The surprise was a total success, and we sisters and cousins enjoyed each other thoroughly for three full days. Do visit Alix's blog for the whole narrative. It's long but very enjoyable, particularly because it's from Alix's perspective, and she reveals the multiple surprises as they were revealed to her. The weekend left all four of us hungry for more bonding time, so I have a feeling we'll be planning another trip together in the near future.

Please join me in welcoming..........

......... Leo Joshua Wiese!!! Our beautiful grandson was born yesterday at 9:09 p.m. He weighs 7 lb 9 oz and is 19 3/4" long. We couldn't be prouder of Erika, who worked very hard all day to produce this little miracle, and Josh, who heartily devoted himself to the coaching role of a lifetime. We are so pleased and proud that they chose our family surname to be their son's given name!

Jenni chronicled Erika's labor and delivery all day long on her blog, so if you'd like to read about it, go to http://www.thecribbies.blogspot.com. Here are a close up of little Leo, a picture of the happy Wiese family, and a little video clip of Leo getting checked in Erika's room, with Josh's mom Kit looking on. There are more photos on Flickr.

She's home!!!

Our Zoey left a baby and came back a little girl!! I can't believe how much she changed in just 3 months. Her summer at Kanakuk was full, fun, and exciting this year. She was constantly surrounded by kids and young adults who loved and cared for her, and of course her mama and daddy were never far away. They spent lots of time with her every day, and when they had to work at their kamp duties, Zoey was in the very capable hands of her summer babysitters, Miss Katie and Miss Olivia. Every day Zoey and her little friend, Mylee, would enjoy great adventures at the lake, in the pool, on the trampoline, etc. Once a week, the Cribbs family would have a 24-hour break from kamp in Branson. At almost 20 months, this little girl is quite the traveler, and she adapted so well to every situation. Jenni has lots of kamp adventures and photos on her blog, so be sure to check it out. Zoey's Papa and I are so so so so so glad she's back. We missed her so much! Oh, and Zoey is going to be a big sister in early April, so next summer we'll have TWO Cribblets to miss. I see a drive to Kanakuk in the future! There are 47 new photos posted on Flickr.