My sister, Donna

On January 10, my sister celebrated her 50th birthday with a surprise party organized by her children, Andrew and Christine. Family, co-workers from Glaxo SmithKline, and neighbors and friends attended. It was nice to see Donna so pleasantly surprised and enjoying herself. It was held at a restaurant/bar in Conshohocken where she lives. There was a light snow fall that night which made it look so pretty. My gift to my sister is a trip to San Antonio, TX to visit our other sister where we have some surprises for Donna there too. We leave on Feb. 12 and will stay a week. Donna is a very special sister to me since she has lived here near me for many years and is such a part of my life. I don't know what I would do without her. She has been my only family while living here all these years. I love her and am thankful for her. I wrote 50 reasons why she is special for her birthday. It was very easy to do since we do so many things together. Recently we have begun scrapbooking together. She is good at keeping me on task. Love ya, sis (my twin) :) and looking forward to going to Texas with you!

WHERE DID TIME GO??

I feel like I need to fill you in somewhat on what's been going on in my life to keep me busy.

So, after our September trip to celebrate my Great Aunt Faye's 100th birthday spending time with my sister Dee, Aunt Jo along with my other sister, Debbie and Donna, we did go make another trip up to my dad's for our traditional fall road trip visiting the corn maze/hayride. Fall is my favorite season and we love the farm country up in Williamsport. Plus this initiates us into fall!

(Christine, dad, and Donna)

Then we celebrated Naomi's 6th birthday in October. We had also had Dave's birthday, Melody's birthday, and Phil's birthday in October. Jon and Mel had family over to their house to help Naomi celebrate even though she was not feeling too well that day.

(Naomi, Darlene, Lydia)

Our first grandparents day at Open Door Christian Academy was in November. Naomi enjoyed having both sets of grandparents there and we enjoyed being there with her.

(Dave, Darlene, Naomi)

Donna, Jon, Mel and girls and Bethany and Phil were here at our house for Thanksgiving dinner which was fun. I tried some couple new dishes this year finding the recipes on the web. One was a new stuffing recipe and the other was with yellow squash. Both turned out good if I say so myself. We played games, worked on our Christmas wish lists, watched football, and worked on a holiday crossword puzzle. The weekend after Thanksgiving, Debbie and Ralph Shay from Texas came for a visit and we enjoyed seeing them a couple of times.

I celebrated my birthday before the Christmas holidays. December is always busy getting ready for Christmas, shopping, baking, wrapping, etc. Our family get together was at Jon and Mel's on Christmas Eve. Lydia said, I got everything I wanted! Naomi asked me after New Year's if she was ever going to see me again -- we did see a lot of each other from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Mel, Lydia, Jon, Naomi Phil & Bethany Brian & Sarah


Donna, Andrew, Christine Donna & Darlene

Happy New Year -- 2009!