Merry New Year

This was written for physical distribution a little after New Year.  However, I also moved and started a new job around that time frame and the letters never got sent...so it's going here.

Let’s just agree to call this my New Year’s Letter…as in it will be arriving sometime in 2016.  Since I totally missed last year (suppose we could have fit it in somewhere between buying our first house and having a baby…clearly our priorities were not in order) the hot news item is that this will be the first and last letter from this address.

I accepted a transfer starting this January.  It is bittersweet.  We love this quirky little town, with its drive-in movie theatre and running/vacuum store.  We bought our house barely a year ago.  Cody and my friend Lee put a lot of sweat (or maybe that was the rain pouring down at the time) into fencing our yard.  I’ve been at the plant for five and a half years.  In my career this year wasn’t a good one but you find out who is really in your corner when things go south and mine was overflowing.  I hope to be that lucky at my next location, the research campus in Greenville, SC.  Cody will leave his company just short of three years and will start a new position in February.  He’s pretty excited to have a job (although I keep telling him he’d make an excellent housewife) and to be going to work for a company that seems less dysfunctional than his previous employers.  We shall see.

I guess maybe it’s time to mention the baby in the room.  Zoe Elizabeth was born on Jan 26, 2015.  She was 8 lbs 9 ounces and 22 inches long.  Cody quickly picked up the basics of baby care although sleep deprivation did cause some problems…one night he tried to un-swaddle and feed a pillow.  After I returned to work, Mr. Mom took over all daycare, doctor’s appointments and often both of them were asleep in the recliner by the time I got home in the evening.  I attended a weeklong training in August and a classmate asked “how is daddy doing alone with the baby?”  I responded with “better than I would!”

With the first grandchild & niece in both our families and the first great-grandchild on both sides of Cody’s family, our house was quite the popular destination this year.  My parents met her at just a few days old.  In February, Cody’s parents and brother (Kelly, Lisa & Lane) flew from Nebraska and my sister and brother-in-law (Meredith & Rob) drove down from Ohio to meet the little one.  When Meredith first held the baby, you’d have thought Zoe had an infectious disease (or maybe she thought having babies was contagious?).  We discovered that the designated babysitter should be Rob, who used to watch four little girls.  In April, Cody’s Grandma Jean made the trip with Lisa.  Upon meeting her great-granddaughter, Jean remarked “I think she looks like me.”  “Why’s that Grandma?”  “Because she’s cute!”  Lisa & Kelly came out one more time at the perfect time to visit North Carolina:  August.  But somehow they managed to pack some unseasonably cool weather in their carry-on, which we appreciated.

Fourth of July was our first post-baby road trip to Ohio.  It was a wonderfully restful week eating way too much ice cream from Young’s Jersey Dairy, going to the zoo and discovering our daughter is a little party animal in loud German restaurants.

In September we made a return trip to Ohio so that my friend Emily and I could run the Air Force Half Marathon.  While Cody & Zoe bunked with Meredith & Rob, we stayed in a sketchy hotel (unfortunately Emily is allergic to the four-legged herd).  The hallway smelled like smoke, the door across the hall was padlocked from the outside and the place just screamed “this is how horror movies start.”  We survived, even after running 13.1 miles with very little training (and there was not an axe murderer behind us).  I decided after that race that it might be good to actually train the next time.  Cody has yet to return to racing, although we both returned to aerial this fall.

We flew to Nebraska for Thanksgiving.  Zoe only annoyed her parents on the flights.  Cody developed a respiratory infection over the holiday and he spent four days in bed, including missing Thanksgiving dinner.  Fortunately, Cody’s cousins enjoyed teaching Zoe about selfies, shuffleboard and anything noisy.  On less crowded days, Cody’s parents and brother were happily taking advantage of baby time.  I made it to the night before our flight home before coming down with a stomach bug.  The airline was surprisingly helpful in waiving change fees.  Maybe it was the comment about puking on the flight…

Christmas saw the third road trip to Ohio this year.  Zoe’s increased mobility since our last visit proved quite challenging.  She found a co-conspirator in a six month old kitten that helped her remove and distribute the bows from the presents.  Zoe got the majority of the presents…and, of course, was fascinated with everyone else’s stuff, like tow straps and gun-cleaning kits.

We’re currently working our way through the logistics of relocating the family to Greenville.  With the baby and furry ones, this is not a simple task.  Our four-legged family numbers four.  We acquired a white cat named Midnight in 2014 when she followed me home on a three mile run.  Around the same time, we also acquired Eva, another Dutch Shepherd, as a companion for Baxter.  They have been merrily terrorizing the backyard ever since.  Spook, our slightly senile secondhand cat, passed in 2015.  Stump, my other secondhand cat, will be going to live with my mother during the transition and she’s threatening not to return him.  That would be a shame as Zoe & Stump are developing quite the love/hate relationship.

Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy and wonderful 2016 (which will be well underway by the time you read this)!

Cody, Andi & Zoe