Happy New Year!

Although I may be a little late, today is the official start to my new year! We arrivd back fom a month in the states yesterday. A now it is back to reality for sure! We arrived back to a smoggy, pollution laden Skopje and to a cat-less house. Talk about depressing! As you know, our (my) 18 year old cat passed away a couple days after we arrived in the states. She was here in Macedonia  with our housekeeper who really took great care of her up until the end. The house is definitely eerie without her.  I got the cat when I was 14 years old so she definitely lived a long, well traveled life! Now it will be interesting to see how long we remain pet-less ;)

Ugh, the picture above is from nye but the iPad is driving ,e nuts and not all ping me to put this in the appropriate spot...

May you rest in peace, sweet girl!

Besides that major downer and getting sick for a week we had a gret trip home. We saw many ( not all) of our friends and family.  Highlights of our trip include:

- I was able to take an awesome trip with my BFF to NYC. I'd always wanted to go around Christmastime! It was awesome to have some one on one QT time! We haven't done that in years!

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- besides being sick, we had a great week with my parents down in Williamsburg.  My mom and I shopped till we dropped and Matt rested and caught up on TV.

- after Williamsburg we were all rested up and headed to Matt's parents in Staunton, Va.  We had an exciting time there playing little elves helping his parents prepare for Christmas and I had some precious time with my nieces and nephews! Which included a girls only shoe shopping trip and build a bear trip (our Christmas present to the nieces.) In a change from our norm, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with Matt's parents

- We made it to my parents for a super yummy Christmas dinner filled with lots of yummy wine

- we closed out our stateside visit in Northern Va with friends which included a quick New Years eve jaunt to New Jersey to see Matt's favorite band

Now we are back in Skopje just in time for Orthodox Christmas, which is Monday.  Lucky us, we have a 3 day weekend before getting back to the grind on Tuesday!