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Dearest Friends & Loved ones,
I have to say folks… I wasn’t looking forward to writing this Holiday greeting… there are no Grand Adventures, no moving horror stories… nothing much exciting going on in the Virginia White House this year to write about. What could I say that would be of interest to those who write and tell us that you actually look forward to this seasonal epic novelette each year? I gotta tell’ya the pressure is on this year …So OKAY here goes…
On the Last page of our continuing saga…(see Holiday Letter 2003 @ www.chateauwhite.com/letters.htm ), I was busily scurrying around trying to buy summer clothes in November for an anniversary cruise in the Caribbean…(at least I had 3 weeks to prepare instead of 3 days like the last time!), course that’s in addition to getting the Christmas decorations up early and the 2003 Christmas letter mailed before leaving and Thanksgiving dinner with my family ready, eaten and cleaned up! (Den was responsible for preparing most of the dinner with the help of the girls, until he successfully took a chunk of his finger off chopping celery, that is). Okay I’ll admit it, my first thought (when he wouldn’t let me in the bathroom, ‘cause I am not too good around blood) was, “Is he gonna be able to swim now?” I am so BAD! Somehow we managed to get dinner on the table 40 minutes late, but worth it!
The girls and I managed to slip in our traditional ½ day of shopping the day after Thanksgiving and then off the following day for a dreamy holiday. Den found a deal on the Internet for a balcony room (which helped my vertigo and seasickness). Den and I always enjoy being together, but this was so special. It’s all about the service, at least on this cruise line it was…it was created to feel like travel during the 30s-40s before airplanes… dining elegance, (two formal dinner nites), historic décor and all the modern amenities… with duty-free shopping at every port. We did splurge on a catamaran boat trip on our anniversary @ St Lucia Island. We toured an active volcano, a cocoa bean farm and swam at a delightful beach. We also toured Antigua island and visited Nelsons harbor - the historic buildings are restaurants, a hotel and gift shops. We drove through the rain forest and ended up on a beautiful beach for a couple of hours (laid about 10 mins too long on our tummy, so we felt it the next day!)… Thank goodness I’d brought aloe gel, ‘cause most everything is cheaper, but the islanders hold your wallet ransom if you have to buy tanning products.
Our pictures and the P.S. 2003 Holiday Letter are on our website www.chateauwhite.com (only don’t believe what you see… ‘cause it was so much more wonderful in person)! Even now a year later, I am awed at the wonderful, delightful, romantic, exciting vacation Den and I have ever had. It really was the first time we ever felt we just didn’t want to go home… course it didn’t help that the entire East coast was in the midst of a blizzard. It took us 3 hours to check in, and get through security. three Cruise ships docked that day to leave San Juan and go home…folks were pretty relaxed about the long lines…we just imitated native Caribbeans…“soo, what ‘s the hurry, mon’?
Oh yeah, one more little detail I left out… before we left for our cruise, Den wrote an e-mail to everyone on his work list that he had tendered his resignation and was moving… to another job across the street in another command. Same pay grade, less hours, much less travel, and they give employees 3 paid hours a week for physical fitness of their choice. Since that announcement, he has lost about 45 pounds, cut his high blood pressure meds in ½ and after humble beginnings of walking a bit, he is running 3-4 miles, 3 days a week as well as swimming and whatever else looks fun!, We are so proud of him! The job is similar to the one he had while stationed at Dahlgren the first time we came to this area in 1990. In fact he was actually in the same space he worked in during Desert Storm for a few months, not that he can tell us what that work is, any more than he could back then! Still, life is s-o-o good!
In March, during Bridget’s spring break, the family took 7 days and went to central Fla. There we hung out with friends in Melbourne (awesome food and company!), spent 1 ½ days @ NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (that was W-a-a-y cool!), then a day @ Disney’s Epcot Center riding the rides, visiting and sampling food from the international villages, and another day to recover soaking up the sun (oops – maybe too much sun!) poolside (staying in an Orlando resort… cheap rates!) and then a long day home. We managed to cram a bunch of stuff into just a few days, but it was fun, relaxing and got us away from the daily grind and stuff! You know - all the things that needed doing, now that Den was home, now that I’m healthy again, etc. etc. etc.!
Let’s see now…. I haven’t mentioned Mama and Tommy girl yet have I? Since our last communication, we have added several kitties to our household! These are feral cats (feral is any cat not exposed to, or domesticated by the human touch)! In September of 2003 we found a half starved Mom and 3 kittens on our door step… and we decided that we would feed them, tame them and give them to the humane society to find a good home… it was sound, logical reasoning. By October only the mom and one kitten had survived, and they even came when we called them, slept in the shelter we made for them in the wood pile, ate on the deck when the door was closed… but no touching allowed! Eventually the curiosity of the kitten, now called Tommy … allowed us to pet and even feed her (oops! Tommy turned out to be a girl!) inside, but only with the door open (in the dead of Winter!).
All was very promising until about February when Mama went into heat, and then so did Tommy ‘girl’. Having two pregnant mothers living in close proximity was interesting and when they delivered kittens two week apart, Tommy’s arriving on Easter night… the fun really began! Within a few days, both Moms had moved their kittens to the woods… each ending up with 3 babies. We lost track of them for a while, though the moms came to eat. Tommy reappeared eventually, and after trapping her in the house, we found the 10 week old babies and made them a home in our master bath for the next 3 weeks. Tommy was fixed, but kept separated from the babies so we could domesticate them. We found homes for the 2 males, and Jenny claimed ownership and financial responsibility for ‘Baby cakes’ (Nefret).
Now we have Jeeves, Emma, Tommy girl and Nefret, 3 Alpha females and poor Jeeves who just wants some peace! J With resounding success behind us we tackled 1 wild mom and her very wild offspring. We trapped the kittens 14 weeks old by now, and again put them in our bathroom… for three days they howled day and night inside while Mama cried outside… Some days I had to make myself go into that room to feed them and clean up after them - the smell was, well they were males (they scared the livin’-way--dailies out of me at times and gave me the he-be-jeebies) …For the next few weeks… we all slept with ear plugs and CDs playing… to drown the awful noise. Defeated, we finally trapped Mama, had her fixed, tricked the kittens into carriers, cause they were seriously wild even after 3-4 weeks… we had all three males fixed, and released them all back into the woods on the same day! OPERATION FREEDOM was a success! The animals were free and we had our bathroom back!
Now you are asking yourself…WHY? Why would we put ourselves through this expense, and hassle? Well, ignorance at first, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, and eventually we were in too deep to get out of the situation without killing them all…which was never an option. So we were stuck… we opted to at least be responsible caretakers. The kittens we found homes for are well cared for, and though our family of 4 inside and 5 outside (oh yeah the boys brought home a stray a few weeks ago, a fluffy gray affectionately named “Boots” who now, like the boys (Red, Gray and Sirius, who is drop-dead-gorgeous- black)… come when you call them by name. Most times, Little Boots is waiting or sleeping at the door. The boys play with the indoor cats through the sliding glass door… Boots and Red ‘hang’ on the deck most days (Red the way scary kitten, now talks to me through the door and almost touches me when I feed him in the mornings). No one could have convinced me I’d be a ‘Cat lady’, but with 9 kitties to feed, house and love each day… the evidence is hard to deny! J
We have not been idle this year, but have constructed some planned and some oh no! s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e! projects. Let’s see… since April, we had to have the roof and skylights replaced, we added attic stairs, have built a 12x16’ shed, a deck beneath our original deck (it was always a mud hole and nasty), 3 all weather cat shelters… refinished 2 of the 4 metal chairs that belonged to Den’s parents. And I am working on a foyer table, made from a salvaged table we ”saved”. There are numerous paint and stencil jobs I want to tackle, but it looks like they will wait now till after the holidays.
Hey! believe-it-or-not… both the VA White House and the “other” White House, … made history in 2004 - our addresses are still the same! (Well except for Bridget… she spends her weekdays at VCU - Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond , VA but most weekends at home). Having graduated Summa cum Laude from Germanna Community College with a 4.0, she was excited to attend VCU, her first choice.
Bridget is currently enrolled as a Biomedical Engineering student with a Pre-Med track. The day we helped her move onto campus, we thought her worst trauma would be the first B or C that she ever received and she might require some counseling… B-r-o-t-h-e-r were we wrong!
First ask Bridget or any one currently in or graduated from BioMed engineering, and they will tell you it is tough. This first semester as a transfer student has been a rough and bumpy road… but she is hanging in there! I marvel at her level of commitment to trust God to walk her through the amazing ‘flatmate horrors’, the shock of just being a number, professors that don’t teach or who don’t care and sometimes both, and most of all bearing up under intense pressure to be the best in every area, to get into Med School … it’s a lonely place to find one’s self most days. Even with all that, she still has a shot at 4.0 this semester, and has accepted the very real possibility of only a 3.8. She comes home most weekends for ‘family escape’ and we love having her here. In Richmond she attends the Calvary Chapel Young Adults study, which keeps her anchored.
Jenny-Rose turned 25 this October and it was rather sobering to still be at home, unattached, though very busy. She celebrated in a flash-to-the-past with an old fashioned pajama party… Mom and Dad escaped to Williamsburg , walking hand-in-hand around the Colonial area, OMS (that’s Outlet Mall Shopping) and R & R. They decided that they really should do that more often! J
Wondering what Jenny-Rose is up to these days? She is still here at home. She desires to eventually be a wife and a homeschool Mom. Meanwhile…she is a Lady-in-Waiting to the King-of-Kings. She tells those who ask, she is a Homemaker-in-training, I will add to that… a self-taught historic costume designer/seamstress, her Mom’s right-hand and sometimes missing memory chip. She has long since past me in most of her creative and sewing skills and comes up with costumes that simply amaze me (although she doesn’t make dresses for profit, to make a name or career for her self or sell patterns on the Internet, she is actually quite well known in the historical costume realm). She still maintains the web site of her church and that of the Virginia CSN radio station. She keeps her own web site updated with her projects, the successes and the failures. She sings on a worship team, and is active in other areas of CCFred as well.
I guess that’s all the news, well except for me! I am singing again, on the CC Spotsy worship team, which is more of a blessing than I can describe, singing praises to my Lord. I have finally adjusted with grace to being on the other side of 50, being married for a quarter of a century… and all the physical, spiritual, and lack of short-term memory ‘challenges’ that a half century of years will bring. J I won’t bore you with the details of the struggle to accept my lot, but suffice it to say I am simplifying my life! I have gently led the family into a better, healthier way of eating; I am going to the gym 3 days a week, and finally… I am decluttering my closets, the bookshelves full of 10 years of schooling, the mini-fabric store, years worth of craft dreams never made, the garage, attic… No joke! Remember every time we moved we had to get a bigger truck, then two bigger trucks? Well, never again! Oops; I didn’t just say that did I? N-e-v-e-r is SUCH a scary word! Oh, well… life goes on and we are just going with the flow these days…and with that, all that’s left is to say is,
We wish we could be with you in person this holiday. You’ll never know how much you are missed. It is our fondest hope this season, that you and yours would know the Love of our Lord and Savior, the fellowship of all those you hold dear and our very Best Wishes for the New Year!
Merry Christmas to all and to all our Love,
Dennis, DJ, Jenny & Bridget |
