So long, 2009... hello, 2010

This New Year feels different from every other one. This isn't just a progression from one year to the next, it's a radical departure from every year that's come before. More gifts, more realizations, more opportunities and more reasons to be thankful than we could have imagined just six months ago.

Celebrated New Years Day by seeing "Avatar" in IMAX 3D. Peg's first time, our second (and I suspect there's a third down the road for me). Had a wonderful dinner tonight at the home of our friends and another family who we'd planned to camp with in June and who canceled the trip when Peg was diagnosed. Plotted and planned some summer vacation that's pretty close to home and that doesn't involve camping, maybe renting a big house in Carmel for an extended weekend.

Other than "mystery trip #3" we're planning on going to Colorado in June (using up the tickets we couldn't use for our niece's wedding last summer) and camping in Carlsbad, California on the beach with some old, dear friends in late July. Peg will probably bail about four days in and visit her cousin in Huntington Beach while Zoë and I wrap it up at the beach. She's got a lot more energy than two months ago but is a long way off from where she was before she was diagnosed. Stronger than she was this summer but still fragile compared to where she was prior to June 12, which is our family's 9/11.

Happy New Year. Here's to new beginnings for all of us.

Peg sails through Port Yankout...

...I didn't have the stomach for it. Okay, enough with the bad jokes already-- Monday Peg had her abdominal chemo port removed. Yay! We ended up spending the entire day at the hospital for what's a fairly minor procedure, but it was nice to be back at Mercy for something expected and uncomplicated. Peg's a wee bit sore but glad to have one less reminder of our crazy summer.

Last night we spotted a coyote on the back deck sniffing around the sliding door to our bedroom. First sighting on our property in the 20 years we've lived here. He's joined the pantheon of other critters that have paid us a visit-- the possum we found slurping up the grease under our old grill; the raccoon family that showed up at our side door; the psychotic grey squirrel that threw itself repeatedly at our back door; and our neighbor's enormously pudgy cat, who amuses us by spazzing out on our old deck. The boards are a little rough, and the old thing rolls around repeatedly on them to scratch his own back.

I'm sure we amuse our neighbors as well ;-)