Thanks, Adrien and SRS. It is too long, but there has been nothing any of us could do about it, the past twelve years have been tough in many ways. We are okay and we do cope with it in our own ways. If someone had told me I wouldn't see my mom for eight years when I moved back to New England, I would have never believed them, but it did come to pass. I wouldn't have believed it when we left our daughter back there to move back to the West. We joke about being "reverse" pioneers and reliving the long separations of our ancestors and their families.

She and I have gotten past the crying our eyes out over it and just concentrating on making it a good day for the boys. She does have a wonderful boyfriend and his family, plus her ex-in-laws include her and have been pretty neat grandparents to the boys.

Thanks for the music links, Becky. I was kind of surprised the second song of the jingle mix was about getting drunk on Christmas!:-)