Before I start can I preface this with...ummm, do you see this adorable little one above?! That's our niece Olivia. She's my Brother Richard's daughter and she seems to have this face on for the majority of the day. More about her in a minute. I'll bring you guys briefly up to speed on my Holiday etc...
Once again, Christmas has passed in a blink. My whole family keeps saying that they can't believe that Christmas even happened. But I have to admit that the past few days have been quite abnormal for my entire family. My parent's came to visit almost two weeks ago. They wanted to check in on us post hurricane Sandy and my dad gave us some advice and input pertaining to the repairs needed in our home.
So, after their regular scheduled visit they then made the 6 plus hour drive back to their place way in upstate NY. But upon arrival up there my dad got the call that his mom, my Nana, had passed away. So they had to make a very somber drive right back down here. And since I'm trying to keep this brief and light I'll skip any talk of what was obviously a sad time for everyone in my family. But I will say that despite the circumstances it was a blessing to see all of my loved ones together in one place over the past couple of days.
Ok, now that my parent's are back down here they are staying through the New Year and we'll be getting together with everyone over at my brother Richard's place...which is the home of...you guessed it...this little adorable ball of jumping joy known as Olivia!
This little munchkin really keeps us smiling. She is so much fun to be around. Always happy...such a good baby. My parent's are on cloud 9 with her. And so are my brother and his girl.
As I've been saying ad nauseam...it's been so so cold here!! And I don't mean here in New Jersey...because that goes without saying...but here in my home! The storm left us barren under our floorboards after flood waters washed the insulation out. And something screwy is going on with our heating system. We can't even stand to be downstairs for more that a few minutes at a time.
So we were So excited when these two fabulous gents from Speedy showed up! They really lived up to their name and by midday we had new foam insulation filling our crawlspace. And we are lucky because these guys are friends of my brother Walt...if this wasn't the case we'd never ever have gotten an appointment with them. They are booked solid with all the storm ravaged homes in our area.
We are still cold due to the heating system being on the fritz...but at least the floors beneath our feet are above freezing temperature. We have so so much to do to our home to make it a comfortable living space. It will be a long road. We've got big celebrating to do for New Years, because despite how bad it is...it could have been way worse. And that seems to be the spirit with everyone around here. You really wouldn't believe the resiliency of the New Jersey Shore. We'll all be kicking into high gear in the New Year!
I look forward to taking some time over this weekend to catch up on my fave blogs to see how everyone's Holidays went over.
And as usual, I'll do my best to keep you posted. xo, Jenny
