Welcome Becca and Gracie!

This week has brought new additions to our lives. First, Rebecca Catherine Catt, or Beautiful Becca, as she is fondly known, was welcomed by our dear friends Chuck and Brenda Catt on Monday, January 15. Becca wanted to be sure her arrival was not uneventful, and was complete with a helicopter ride. Becca will be staying at St. Mary's Hospital for a few weeks, and Brenda has now been reunited with daddy and daughter. We've attached a link to Becca's care page. Please keep the Catts in your thoughts and prayers, and the wonderful staff at the NICU at St. Mary's for taking such good care of our friends.

Becca's Care Page
Page Name: beautifubecca

Yesterday, Mike and I added young Gracie into the Swanson household. Gracie is a four month old pup with a sweet and mellow personality. We had talked about getting another pup this spring, but she was such a sweet girl we decided not to wait. Gracie is adjusting well to her new home, and is getting along well with Axel. Axel celebrated his first birthday on Friday (not that he knows it). Even as an "adult" his energy and enthusiasm have not waned a bit. He likes having a canine playmate in the house, but isn't as excited about sharing his toys.

Little else on the horizon for us at the moment. Just enjoying winter now that it's here and plotting our next home improvement project. Stay tuned.

Aut Seven

Happy New Year one and all. We hope you've had a wonderful holiday season with joy, hope and fun.

The Swansons have spent most of the holidays in St. Peter. We hosted Christmas Eve dinner with my parents John and Mikey, my brother Matt, uncle Mikkel and Axel's Granny Dawn. We had a great dinner with fruit soup (frukt suppe), sweet potatoes, beef tenderloin, lefse, cheesecake, and asparagus. There were pickled beets and herring for the truly Scandahoovian-but we stopped short of the lutefisk. Since I'm not technically Norwegian and I'm married to a Swede, I decided it wasn't a requirement. We had a wonderful evening eating and laughing. Axel was on his best behavior, and didn't steal anyone's dinner.

Yesterday St. Peter was visited by old man winter who had plenty to say and left us with about seven inches of snow. Axel loves the snow and spent a lot of time yesterday afternoon running around and trying to fetch snowballs. Last night we dropped in at the neighbors, Craig & Julie Bitters, for a New Years party. We received the red carpet treatment by means of a personally snow blown path between our front door and theirs.

2006 was the year of the indoor home improvements and 2007 will be the year of the outdoors. Mike gets the week between Christmas and New Years off, so he decided to paint the bathroom. It looks great and we're just working on getting some of our pictures from the North Shore framed to put on the walls. Now the only room left to be painted is the guest room.

Plans for outside this coming spring include more landscaping and getting a fence erected for Axel. The height of said fence is to be determined, as our furry friend continues to grow and routinely leaps from a standing position to five feet in the air.