Happy New Year Everyone!
2006 was a busy year for both of us.
Over Christmas Melody's grandmother passed away. She lived to be 89. Her death did bring the family together, as Melody's mom finally met Karen for the first time in almost 6 years. (Melody's mom was not ready to meet Karen up to this point.) They both had good conversations, and Melody's mom invited Karen back to dinner next time! :-)
We exchanged early Christmas presents this year. Melody gave Karen a new computer to replace her old slow computer. Karen gave Melody a digital photo frame. Melody's sister and Karen both chipped in to get Melody a GPS system.
We went to various Christmas events. For the first time, we decorated a community tree at the San Jose downtown. We made ornaments from artwork from the KarMel Scholarship to decorate the tree. We got dressed up to go to musical "Christmas Dreamland" and SF Symphony, where Peabo Bryson, James Ingram, Stephanie Mills and Deneice Williams etc sang.
We also spent the last 2 summers building our deck! It is like our baby. We are so proud of it. Melody's dad did the initial post and framing, but we did the rest of the work after that. Melody drew up a plan on what the deck should look look like. We did all the deck work by ourselves. We even layed pavers, installed a water fountain pond, put up a pergola, installed a drip system for the pond plants and put pebble stones around the deck. We finally finished end of October and had a party to celebrate. Hopefully we will have more bbq parties the coming year over the summer.
Photos of the Deck Party
Photos of our Deck built in Stages
Melody finally turned from consultant to full time position at Cisco in Marketing IT in August. Good thing is that is Cisco has good health benefits so I can cover Karen now. The job has been keeping Melody really busy the last few months as she is getting more senior position tasks.
Karen has been dealing with a few health issues over the last couple of months. She's been suffering from uncontrolled muscle spasms, which the doctor is still not sure what is causing it.
Our kids (four-legged ones) are doing good. We have total of 9 cats and 1 dog as of now. We had a new strat cat, Owl, come join our home. She's independent and fiesty cat. Also this year, we lost our Momma Kitty cat due to illness. We fostered and adopted out 3 cats to our friends, Lisa and Dee.
We hope that the new year brings happiness and joy to your family!
Love,
Karen and Melody
Jan 1, 2007
http://www.karenandmelody.com |
