1997

In March 1997 Mair and Norman celebrated their 40th anniversary, only to have him die a couple of weeks later on April 10th (one year to the day before we lost Katrina).     It was devastating for Mair, whose whole life had evolved around Norman.    They had never had children.

We had a lot of happy events that year though.     Both Mindy and Joe graduated, and I was happy to attend both events - Joe in Fresno, and Mindy in Sacramento:

James graduated with Mindy.

Gary and Gill visited with their son and daughter (Judith and Christopher).     It was Gary and Gill's second visit with us - they had spent a month with us when we lived in Yosemite Lakes Park, just a few weeks after they were married.    Returning with their children was kind of special to me, as my mother's sister Lu had visited me in Florida, her daughter Gwyn had visited me twice with husband Oscar while we were in California, and now their daughter was making her second visit with us with her children.     That's four generations.     I hope one day that either Judith or Christopher will visit with their kids and keep the tradition going.

I like this photo of Dick and I taken at Amber's christening this year:

Another favorite photo is one of Katrina with Suzanne, Becky, Marie and Mindy.     They had all gone to Grand Canyon where Suzanne was working and spent time together.     I'm sure this trip remains strong in the fond memories for the girls.

Not wanting Mair to spend a Christmas alone without Norman, we persuaded her to come and stay with us.    

That Christmas was not the happiest we have had.    Katrina learned that she had Hodgkins disease on Christmas Eve, and called to tell us - asking if she could spend Christmas with us.    Some of the kids chose to come too which was nice and we appreciated their support for Katrina.    It did have its funny moment in that we had expected it to be a very quiet Christmas - everyone seemed to have made other plans, so we had prepared very little food.    All of a sudden we had way more people than food and Dick and I chased around Christmas morning buying supplies to throw together a tradition meal.    It wasn't the best Christmas meal we have served but at least everyone had enough to eat.

I end the year with another favorite photo - this time my beloved Callie:

Mair wasn't really a cat lover, but she loved Callie.    Because of the dogs, we used to put the cat food on a shelf in the utility room.     Callie was getting on in age by this time and had trouble getting up there.    While Mair stayed with us, she would paw Mair's bedroom door early in the morning and when Mair opened it would meow, stick her tail in the air and walk down the hall, looking over her shoulder periodically to make sure that Mair was following her.    She would go the shelf, meow at Mair again and wait to be picked up.    If you look closely at her right front paw you will see a small area with no hair - that's where she had the first of two rattle snake bites!