1/15/99 Finally, we are into 1999 and I will be the first to inform you that 1998 was a pretty bad year except for the birth of our sweet baby girl Amanda. We have had a very bad Christmas here in Los Angeles. Sean's father, Ralph (aka "Poppa" to the grandkids) was visiting here for Christmas and he had a heart attack, and we subsequently had to make the painful decision of taking him off of life support. He passed away on December 29, 1998. It has been a very long 3 weeks, and we all just returned from Florida, where the services were. I will be making a web page to honor Ralph as soon as I can. We are extremely saddened by this, but we know the kids now have so many wonderful guardian angels up there! We started the year off with my Uncle Artie passing away and ended it with Sean's father - all we can hope for is that 1999 will be happier and better for us in every way. Amanda is doing well - growing so quickly as well as Nicholas. I will be trying to update the webpages with more pictures of them. Until my next update - take care and happy new year.