February 5, 2025

Dearest Friends Old & New,

I'm sorry I haven't blogged. I ended my old blog a couple years (or so) ago and thought I wouldn't come back, but here I am. Haha. The remainder of 2023 and much of 2024 were very hard on my family... and so far 2025 has been hard on me. I'll try not to go into too much detail (as is my way, haha) so that this doesn't drag on.

I think I'd told you on my previous blog that my son John and grandson Aero moved to a different house the beginning of August 2023 so that John's girlfriend, Katelyn, and her dog could live with them. You remember my son was in and out of the hospital mid-August through part of November 2023 for kidney stones and almost had kidney failure because the doctor refused to remove a certain kidney stone because it did not "meet the size requirements" for surgical removal. At this time, John is still having trouble.

Also, in August 2023, granddaughter Madison had our great-grandson, Symere, 3 weeks early by cesarean to save her life. This is Symere on January 5 (2025) while the big snowstorm was still going on ... he's a little less than 1½ years old now.

In October 2023, John asked Katelyn to marry him. She said yes, of course.

I had a total left knee replacement in February 2024. Now my knees match. 😂

John and Katelyn surprised Aero on his birthday back in April '24 with a puppy. He loves that dog. But Jupiter (we call him "Jupe") is a big boy. Ugh. Hopefully he gets past the puppy stage soon! Aero is up to my chin now in height. John said the doctor told him Aero is on target to probably be 6'7" someday! John is 6'4"! Aero will be 7 years old this coming April 3.

The sping/summer of 2024 was hard on our family for various reasons, which I'm not at liberty to share. Suffice it to say God did some miraculous things.

John and Katelyn were married Oct. 19, 2024.

A scary moment happened in September '24 when granddaughter Kara (17yo) was on her way to high school when some guy came out from around another car at a high rate of speed and slammed into Kara's car. She was fine. Her car was not.

The day after Christmas 2024, we admitted Jerry to a nursing facility. It's 25-30 minutes from where we live. My car won't make it, so John lets me use his Suburban every two weeks to pick up Jerry from there and get him here for Wound Care. I didn't get to see him the first three weeks because we had that huge blizzard and snow/ice storm, plus my car wasn't working. We STILL have piles of snow and sheets of ice down here. Jerry is currently in the hospital for a raging UTI that they didn't catch (they're still learning about him). Since I don't have "eyes on" him anymore, I didn't know what was going on with him or I would have been noticing the signs before it got this far along. We don't know how long it will be before he is released since they have to get the nursing home set up for infusion for antibiotics for him. I couldn't see him yesterday or today because we had ice again.

Lotsa love and blessings,

Diana