December has arrived. While we had a few snowflakes yesterday, the grass is still very green in our yard... I won't digress here into a discussion on global warming...
Our Thanksgiving getaway was wonderful. Relaxing for all three of us and gorgeous weather made golfing and time by the pool quite nice. We do like our "new" tradition and hope we can pull it off one more year. After that, Erin will be in college and then, who knows...
Erin going to college has been creeping into my thoughts lately. Spending last week with the Shives and many of Ariana's friends gives a window into the next step of life. Erin, as always, loved hanging with the college kids. This year, there were more! Ariana (a senior), T Connor (junior), Ariana's roommate Katy, from the island of Jersey of the coast of England (senior), and joining us for Thanksgiving dinner were two of Ariana's triathalon club teammates, Dan (sophomore) from Syracuse, NY, and Dario, a grad student from Milan, Italy who is a Fulbright Scholar studying the clarinet at USC.
How's that for a reminder that the world is a big, wide place...
Erin soaked it all up and by the time we get to the next stage, she will be ready. Me, on the other hand... I've got just under two years to get there...
But, now we are back in Rochester and in the middle of Erin's junior year. School is going well and she'll be busy this next month with the student government fundraiser called GOFA - Give One For All.
She's also playing off season volleyball with a new team this year, as our Southside Juniors club didn't have enough kids at the upper level to make a team. So, Erin tried out for a new club and now has teammates from all over southern MN. This team will travel far and wide starting in January. Trips to Minneapolis, Omaha and the Wisconsin Dells should make the winter go by quickly. This has been the first week of practice and so far, so good...
Dan is busy this month, too. Traveling with his boss today and then headed to Nashville for company wide meetings next week.
My job continues to energize me and I feel like it's such a good fit for my skills. I am so fortunate to find that after staying home with children and not being in the work force for a great portion of my adult life. It's such a conundrum for women. I got the best of both worlds - a chance to be a stay at home mom when my kids were little, and now a chance to do a job I love. Gratitude.
So, bring on December. We head towards those memories of Shannon in her last days. How can we be approaching our 5th Christmas without her? And yet, Erin said to me yesterday, "I love Christmas". The holidays still represent family, love and generosity. Shannon amplified the importance of those things for us. It is never the same without Shannon, but it can still be good.
