Maine for the Holidays

Season's Greetings, everyone. I have returned back to the hustle and bustle of NYC from my wonderful trip to Maine for the holidays. Sean and I flew up to Maine from JFK on Delta (avoid doing that if you can - it was not pleasant). We arrived after midnight and the 'rents kindly picked us up and took us home.

I didn't get to see Sis until the morning and I admit when I first saw her, it was a minor shock. Last time I was here - only a month and a half ago - she had quite a lot of hair. True, it was thinning, but still substantial. Now, she barely has any hair - it's kind of like a peach fuzz on her head with a few sprigs of longer hair (grown out from the shave). The family likes to call it her mon chee chee hair... not sure if I spelled that correctly, but the mon chee chee was a little toy monkey with hair standing straight up all over its body ("Mon chee chee, mon chee chee - oh so softy and cuddly!"). Sister looked like she was battling cancer now - before she looked like a rockin' chick who decided to shave her head to make a statement. So that was an initial adjustment.

She also looked exhausted. Her big plan to get chemo on Thurs was ruined thanks to a storm dropping buckets of snow, which shut down the center. She had to go on Friday morning instead, so she wasn't very energetic until Monday night. She was great though, she took naps and then got right back into the thick of things. I got to watch her stick herself with the blood thinner drug (she is an EXPERT - no fear!) .

It was wonderful to hang out with the family - Mom spent much of the weekend in the kitchen baking. There were seven of us for Christmas dinner and Mom made six desserts! She can't help herself, it's cute.

Monday morning Sis went to get blood drawn to see how the thinners were working - end result is her blood wasn't thinning enough, so she needs to stick herself twice a day plus take the pill until her next blood test. Yuck.

We did our gift exchange Monday afternoon when Sis had some energy. The highlight of the gift giving was Dennis giving Sis a Playstation 2 and Dance Dance Revolution with two deluxe dance pads - we spent the rest of the night attempting to dance - we couldn't quite get out of Beginner mode. I accidentally switched it to Basic for one song and thought I was going to have a heart attack! Sister got into the action, too. She was starting to bounce back from her chemo. It was also hilarious to watch Sadie and Sam (the 'rents cat) roll all over the stinky dance pads - they couldn't get enough of it! I think our stepdad took some pictures of us dancing, so we'll post them if he can figure out how to download the images and email them to us. =)

Turnaround Tuesday had Sis back to her old self and we had dance tournaments (Dennis won). It's quite a workout - I may have to get the game for myself! I didn't want to go back home - it was so much fun hanging out with everyone.

Sister's back to work today, but I know she found someone good to help her now, so Sis can focus more on the business end of things. ... and there you have it, you are now all caught up on our Christmas in Maine.