Happy New Year

Tonight we are having Chinese food with the little girls and babysitting them so their parents can go out for New Year's with Mr. Billy as an attachment.

When I last saw those girls this afternoon they were playing summer with their bathing suits and sunglasses on in the kitchen, all laid out on towels hoping for a tan.

This has been a good year in my family.

Mr. Billy the world's most smiley baby was born in the summer. My middle son got engaged to the kind of girl I hoped he would marry in the fall. They have asked me to make the four flower girl dresses so more on that project later, much more.

As in every year and in every family there were some sad things, for me one of those was losing the one and only Mr. Rascal last spring. But then we adopted Miss Daisy who spent last Christmas locked in a cage in the dark waiting for the police to shut down that particular operation. One of the many things I learned from her is that even when you are just so sad someone, somewhere needs you anyway.

That and that when things seem hopeless and doomed, you never know, you just might get rescued, even when that doesn't make any sense at all. It is hard to put into words but there is something in that dog that just believes in something better, she has faith in things unseen as they say. 

You just can feel it.

And the thing is it turned out she was right, and every one else was wrong.

So I want to dedicate this one to her and leave you with some pictures taken today on a long walk on the golf course near me. It is hard to get her to stay still but maybe here you can get a sense of her first family Christmas:

One of her specialities is divot retrieval

Divot capture

On the way home in what is known as Mom's dog car

And finally after a wild Christmas with family, dogs and small children tearing up the place, here she is beside the wreckage of the much jumped on couch:

I had a cover on that couch for dog protection so much for that idea

A new year tomorrow.