And There Went January!

Whew, there was a lot going on in January!

But the last thing that happened was that I made a quick trip to Virginia to help my sister-in-law, Dawn, fly her cats to their new home in Colorado.  Her husband and twin sons had moved to Longmont in August but Dawn had to stay behind to finish her last six months of work as a doctor for Kaiser.  You can imagine that her retirement on January 31st was a cause for great celebration!

 Here is one of the two kitties that had kept Dawn company those six long months in Virginia.  He's on top of one of the packing boxes in the not quite empty house, calmly surveying the scene unaware that he would soon be stuck in a cat carrier for an exciting adventure. 

 But first, some more celebrating.   For old times sake we went to L'Auberge Chez Francois for our last dinner in Virginia.  The location of many special occasion dinners for both John and Dawn and Ben and me and our families, it was the perfect way to say a final goodbye to life in the DC area.

The next day it was time to pack up the cats and head to the airport.

Dawn is smiling in this photo but I can tell you that we were both a bit nervous a bout getting these cats through the experience!

Dawn sprayed the inside of the carriers with a "calming spray" said to "mimic the pheromone produced by mother cats to calm their kittens."  It was similar to what we used when we flew Fetcher out in 2014 and it worked just as well, leaving the kitties calm enough to be hand-carried through security and dozing throughout the flight.  

It all went well and here we are, happily smiling after our arrival in Denver.  Mission accomplished! 

As happy as I was to help get Dawn and the cats reunited with John and the twins in Colorado, I was also glad to have the chance to reunite briefly with friends while I was in the DC area.  My cherished sister, Jean, drove up from southern Maryland to have a little "slumber party" with me the first night with me in a hotel in Tyson's Corner.  It was such fun.  

The next day I drove up to Baltimore to have a long chat with Margie, who had once been our next door neighbor and later was Paul's day care provider for several years before she moved to Pennsylvania.  

That night I stayed with Greg and Lorraine, parents of Paul's friend Alex who had come to visit us right the first week of January.  Loved catching up with them and seeing how their other son, Tommy, had grown up.  

On Thursday I had lunch with Sara, a co-worker at Holy Trinity day school where I worked after retiring from the Library of Congress.  Then I drove into DC to visit with Rhonda, another colleague from Trinity before driving to Tyson's to meet Dawn.  

It was a whirlwind of visits but so rewarding.  Isn't it amazing when you can just pick up from where you left off even though you haven't seen a friend in years?   What a gift to have friends like that. 

Now I'm back home and it's Super Bowl Sunday and light snow is falling.  I had a quick but good trip and am glad to be back home.  

John and Dawn's Virginia house still has to be emptied, cleaned, and painted before it goes on the market in a few weeks.   But their long move is almost completely over!