October brought the early arrival of my great-nephew - Benton - the son of my nephew, Steven, and his wife, Ally. Benton's first few days were spent in NICU and things were pretty scary. It turned out that the hospital messed up and he had received a massive amount of a drug that made it appear that he had a serious clotting disorder. Things turned out fine and he is precious. My sister, Marcia, got to be there for a week when he was born and then got to go back for Thanksgiving and Christmas.Lena and the kids visited in early November and we took them to Old Washington State Park for the Civil War weekend. Caitlin took several hundred pictures and I thought we were going to have to literally pry Brandon away from the reenactment. He was fascinated by it all. It is a good thing that the kids enjoyed themselves because John really struggled with his knee and my achilles tendon made walking so painful.
One of my favorite things about the fall is the color. This year it appeared that there would be no color at all. September and October flew by and the trees went from green to brown. I was certain there was no hope. However, late fall rains changed that and November and early December were amazing.
John and I made a trip to Petit Jean to see the color and eat at Mather Lodge. We were very fortunate to have picked the time we did because we learned that Mather Lodge was getting ready to close for 18 months for renovation. We had a great time - enjoyed our dinner - did some hiking - got some great pictures and - saw a Bald Eagle as we were coming off the mountain.John got some good shots at one of the overlooks on the far side of the park.
Thanksgiving was spent in Columbia with Jennifer and Michael. Chris went with us and we had a great time. Thanksgiving dinner was traditional fare and we had way too much food. I had a hard time with cooking because I felt like I needed to measure up to a "King Thanksgiving" and I am not Memaw. I don't know what they thought about the dinner, but I did the best I could without shedding too many tears. Jennifer and Chris talked for hours and I swear they could really be brother and sister. We did some shopping and had a little down time so Jenn could study for her upcoming board exams.
December was crazy as always. Marcia visited us in Hope and we were finally able to go to Christmas at Old Washington State Park. John and I spent time checking out Christmas lights around the state - Little River County Courthouse, Saline County Courthouse, and the State Capitol. We decorated 2 houses for Christmas - Sherwood Manor and Hope Manor. We spent the Christmas holidays in Hope with Chris, Lena, and the grandkids. Wow - it was a different Christmas for me. Christmas in my family has always been fairly quiet because there just aren't that many people. This year everything just happened on a much larger scale. For example - 1 roll of sugar cookie dough vs 3 rolls of sugar cookie dough or a turkey AND a ham. Christmas dinner included Chuck, LeAnn, and Berniece so we had a total of 11 people. We fit at the table and there was an abundance of food and life was good.
We ended the year with a trip to Rogers to visit Marcia and attend the Razorback basketball game on New Year's Eve. We had great fun with Marcia and at the game. We did some antique shopping, hit the quilt shop and did some sewing while watching football. It was a great end to a great year.
