Merry Christmas from
Iowa City
Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that we would be
spending Christmas in Iowa and, as it stands right now, we will probably see the start of spring
here!! No, there has not been a transplant yet for Charlie, in fact, we haven’t
even had a “standby call” since September.
We decided that the blog will be our Christmas letter since
we left our Christmas card list, etc. back in Roseville – that was definitely
not something that we thought that we needed to bring along with us last
January!
We just had a very special visit with friends from Eastern
Washington – Rose and Bob Gray. We call them our “travel friends” – we met them
on trip to Russia in 2004 and since then have been so fortunate to be able to
travel together over 6 times with them from Africa to Machu Picchu! We had a fun time chatting about our travel adventures
and planning ahead to trips that we all want to take in the future. It is
always hard when people leave – we want to crawl into their suitcases!
We have not had any snow yet, but it has been down in the
“teens” at night. Hopefully, we will get some once the families all get here.
Meg and her family arrive on the 18th and will be here until the 26th
and Doug and his family come on the 23rd and will be here until the
28th. It is going to be so great to all be together again. It was
actually last year after Christmas when we were all together in Portland that
we got the call from the doctors in Iowa that we needed to get to Iowa City!
Charlie has been feeling well the last month – mainly, he
doesn’t have a lot of stamina which is to be expected. This Thursday he will
have his 23rd endoscopy and then on Friday a heart CT scan followed
by an appointment with the heart doctor. 
We have the apartment decorated with a 4 ½ foot Christmas
tree and then a little table top one. Again, we did not think about bringing
Christmas decorations so Meg had Lucy make us some for the tree and then I have
added a few. We have some poinsettias around so the place is looking quite
festive! Oh, we also strung lights out on our balcony! All we need is some snow……..
It has been quite a year and looking back on it we so
realize how fortunate we are that Charlie has stayed in relatively stable
health, to be under the care of fantastic doctors at the U of Iowa Hospitals, to
be living in a great apartment in a LIVELY downtown setting, a loving family
willing to make frequent trips to Iowa City bringing grandkids so we can get
our “grandparent fix” , and last, but definitely not least, all of you supportive friends who have
emailed, called, sent cards, and have kept us in prayer. It truly has made this
year much easier along the way. Yes, we certainly do get discouraged and truly
wonder if the “call” will ever come and periodically, one of us will say, “I
want to go home!” or “I want to see the grand kids!” But….2012 was good!
Last time we gave you an address, but we now have one at our
apartment. It is:
201 S Linn #908 Iowa City, Iowa 52240
We will try to add some pictures and hopefully, will have an
easier time than we did last time.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
