Balance of 1999

The last year of the century!    I can remember as a child, I would think about the turn of the century and it seemed so far off, I couldn't possibly expect to see it - but here we were and still feeling we have a lot of years ahead of us.

It had already been a fun year and it continued to be that way.    We took a quick trip to Mt. Vernon for Bill and Midge Jones' 50th wedding anniversay (Debbie's parents), and then Debbie, Blake and Amber visited us for a while.  

We also attended one of the Craig family's reunion (Dick's Mom was a Craig), and had a great time visiting with uncles, aunts and cousins.     Bill and Frances made the trip too:

Bill and Frances came back home with us and the end of their visit overlapped with a visit from Marie and Mindy.     We 'girls' took a couple of trips together.    One to the Precious Moments Museum and Park,

and then to the Lake of the Ozarks.

Bill and Frances left and we spent a few more days thoroughly enjoying Marie and Mindy.   I especially like this photograph that Mindy took of the four of us:

The last highlight of the year was another trip to Mt. Vernon for me to attend the 75th anniversary of the B.P.W. Federation in Mt. Vernon.    They invited all the Past Presidents to attend.     It was enjoyable and it was nice to see the women I knew again, but I found it somewhat sad to see how small the group had become.     We had over 100 members in our years, but there was barely 30 any more and apparently this was prevalent throughout the country.

One sad note - I lost my beloved Callie.    She was about 17 years old and had a cancerous tumor which was giving her pain, so I had her put down.     I really did love that cat and she had some lovely ways of showing her love for me.

A couple of favorite photos to end the blog.    The first one of Willie was taken by Mindy during her visit.     The second one is my favorite of Pedro.    He had a very shake beginning to his life so it was lovely to see the trust he showed in me.

Well nothing catastrophic happened at the end of the year.     The banks didn't all close down.    The internet didn't crash.     The government didn't come to a standstill and the electricity stayed on - we simply went from 11.59pm on December 31st to 12.01am January 1st with nothing but the sound of Dick and I sleeping peacefully!    And we entered the 21st century.