THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 137 DECEMBER 2020
MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!
Dear Children, Family and Friends.
My Christmas tree and decorations are blazing brightly with working strands of lights and all my Christmas shopping is done! I feel so relieved! Now all I have to do is come up with a menu of easy to fix hors d'oeuvres for the Christmas Eve feast I am hosting this year! Sean and Sarah are hosting our Christmas Day dinner. I suggested that Coryn and Jeremy could hold a New Year's Eve gathering but Sean thought this might be too much togetherness for the Kansas City Lowe family members with Covid 19 raging in our area. I say masks on and go for it even if we have to eat in separate rooms!!
Kay and Richard will be with us for Christmas Eve but with his parents for Christmas Day. And this leads me into delivering some very exciting news! For weeks I have been laboring under the burden of keeping a secret for Kay and Richard until they decided to share with us all that a baby boy is going to join our ever growing family in June! Kay made me a Grandma at 39 and is making me a Great Grandma at 69! But this is pure happiness for me when I think that Ming Jon will be a Grandpa and the other siblings will all be Great Aunts and Uncles! I told Kay and Richard that this fact needed to be pointed out when they shared their good news! This means that next year I will have five granddaughters and five grandsons unless someone else has conceived to deliver more joy to our family! My sewing room is going to be full of nursery room fabrics again!
Josh spent some time in California with Marc and Bryn, then spent a few weeks with the Remsbergs in Florida – and they even managed to persuade Marc to risk flying out to stay with them for awhile. When I saw a photo of Marc, Josh and Leslee-Ann horse back riding together I was amazed as I never expected him to leave his condo let alone take a flight as he takes Covid 19 so seriously. And of course I was amazed to see him on a horse as he tends to be rather unadventurous. Apparently Danny Roach took him horse riding during his high school years. Another thing I knew nothing about! But I am glad that Marc did make the trip as I think months of isolation were beginning to have a negative effect on him – like most of us!
Marc, Josh, Leslee-Ann wearing their Ming Moves the Mountain T-shirts horseback riding in Orlando
When Josh returned to Kansas City in early December he spent a week in quarantine at a friends empty house before returning to Sarah and Sean's . Of course Emmy Lou, and Liam were delighted to have him back as were Ava Claire and Owen. And as if Josh didn't have enough incentive to stay at his brother and sister-in-laws house over his mother's - with their turning the entire lower level of their home over to him complete his own mini kitchen and of course a garage for his car - they upped the ante and brought two kittens into their home! We all know how much Josh loves cats! I hope he is responsible for cleaning their litter boxes!
Speaking of cats: after spending six hundred dollars at the vet's for diagnostic testing on my aging Sheba, she has been diagnosed with stage 2 renal disease and high blood pressure! When I saw the bill my already high blood pressure spiked ! She is now on blood pressure medicine – unfortunately not the same kind or dosage as mine- and expensive prescription food! If any of you are wondering about a stocking stuffer for that wretched cat just stuff some high denomination bills in it to help defray her medical costs! I am also spending a fortune on Kitty Litter as she she is drinking lots of water and peeing constantly!
Unfortunately Ming-Lee underwent another brain scan recently that showed his cancer continues to spread. He is going to continue his infusion treatments, drop the chemo therapy and undergo more radiation treatments. His ability to bounce back from upsetting and disappointing news is incredible! He never stops trying to move that mountain! I know he appreciates all the prayers, hope and love that he gets from all the family and friends supporting him.
Across the pond my nephew Ethan is hospitalized with a blood clot on his lung that unfortunately traveled from his leg. Ethan had actually been seen by a doctor when the classic signs of a leg thrombosis were present – redness, heat, swelling and pain. Somehow the doctor failed to diagnose this and it was a day or so later that Ethan- in great pain - was admitted to the hospital to learn that he would be on blood thinners for the rest of his life. As he heads into week two of his hospital stay he is concerned that he will miss his Christmas pud, the Queens speech and his mince pies! I have Face Timed with him - he looks good- but of course he is anxious to be home and terrified of contracting Covid 19 whilst in the hospital.
Thanksgiving was very quiet this year - I celebrated with Sean and family, Kay and Richard with his parents and Coryn and her family with Jeremy's family. No-one flew in for Thanksgiving and no one will be flying in for Christmas either as Covid 19 has us all grounded in our homes with our immediate family members. I am so blessed to be in Kansas City with eleven family members that I can still visit with – although we do have to quarantine from each other for a few weeks sometimes if we think we may have been exposed to the pandemic! Thank goodness we have a vaccine that will hopefully be as effective as claimed and prove to be safe as millions roll up their sleeves for the shot. Also I am sure that once Joe Biden moves into the White House masks will be mandated from sea to shinning sea. I just hope that we do not have to send in the Marines to get that buffoon Trump out first. Plus the place will need to be fumigated as well since their have been so many morally bankrupt Trump staffers stricken with Covid 19 there.
I recently purchased a cheap version of a fitbit in an effort to motivate me to walk at least five thousand steps a day and I have to say it does guilt me into spending less time on the couch with my iPad. I frequently walk with my neighbor Charlene and we both love hitting the five thousand steps! We hope to walk all winter, bundled up against the cold and masked up against the virus! That mask makes a great face warmer on a cold windy day!
I have been sewing a lot of Christmas masks to meet the demands of family and friends and am so glad that I can do something however small to help in this war against the virus. I also found time to sew a few outfits for Emmy Lou and up-cycled an old Christmas dress of Ava Claire's into a cute top for her. I am looking forward to being able to visit the Remsburgs sometime next year so that I can spend time making custom clothes for Callie!
I am glad that we can at least all zoom over the holidays and greatly look forward to the time that we can all be together again safely as a family. We are so blessed to have such a big close knit family to help us through these challenging times. I know that we would all love to be able to give Ming Lee, Lori, Claudia and Blake a big in person hug this Christmas but hope they feel our love, prayers and hopes for a Christmas miracle for Ming Lee. He has inspired all who know him with his ceaseless efforts to move his mountain. For his birthday last month he was honored with a fly over at the Indianapolis airport by many pilot friends!
Time to have Alexa play some Christmas music and chase Sheba around the Christmas tree as I try to catch her to ram a pill down her throat and keep all my fingers! No mistletoe in my house but I am sending hugs and kisses to you all and know that I have a special place in my heart for each of you ! Love your ever ready for her cranberry infused Christmas cocktail Mother!
Liam enjoying a Christmas Oreo Cookie! He wanted Emmy Lou's so badly that I couldn't resist and what a clean up I created for myself but it was so worth it!
Ava Claire 7 and Owen 5
