I'm backkkk...

Well, life continues to be interesting in the Sarrade household. Gracie had a fabulous Christmas - she got SOOOO many new toys and stuff to play with. In addition, we took her to Disneyland (her new mecca) when we were in SoCal visiting with my sister the week after Xmas. Everyone had the flu (or got it while we were there) so we actually left and came home early but the damage was done. All of us had the crud on/off most of January. We also went on Gracie's first plane ride to my parent's house in early Jan. She had an amazing time with them and loved fishing with Grandpa, visiting a friend's restaurant/gift shop and feeding the seagulls while we were there, collecting shells on the beach... it was a Gracie dream come true. If she could have somehow combined it to add in the Disney Princesses then we'd have reached a state of total Nirvana...

We did have a sad event in December - we lost our cat of almost 17 years which really took us all down. Gracie was hit especially hard since she really loved Jasmine and could almost perfectly imitate her demanding "meow." However, in the past couple of weeks, we did go out and adopt two new cats... Mimosa (Mimzie) and Contessa (Tess) who have come into our lives and rescued us from some of that sadness. It still lingers but having them in our house is a definite bright spot.

I continue to do well post-op. I have lost about 90 lbs. in the 6 mos since I had surgery. Gracie asks about my surgery every now and again (Mommy? Is your tummy healed up?) but has seemed to fail to notice any change in my body shape - nor has she ever mentioned the change in Luis since his surgery nearly two years ago despite the pictures of both of us around the house prior to the weight loss. I always wonder how soon before she asks about how this came about.

A couple of weeks ago we also took her to the Disney on Ice show which was a huge hit. Anything Disney or Princess is big in our household. She wore her Princess Aurora dress (purchased for an exorbitant amount at Disneyland) and joined hundreds of other little Sacramento area "princesses" for the show. It was pretty cute but expensive. One must continually remind oneself that they're only this little once in order to continue to justify things such as a $10 box of popcorn or an $85 princess dress... oy vey!

Through it all though, with every sweet look or glance, I'm continually reminded at just how fortunate we are to have her... she is the singular most amazing thing that has ever happened to me and I thank God daily for her presence in our lives.