We enjoyed many sights and sounds of the season in December and had a couple of reminders to be thankful for our life and health each day.
Joe had emergency eye surgery on Dec. 19 to repair a partially detached retina. Thankfully he is doing fine and his vision is returning to normal but it was a scary few days from diagnosis to surgery to recovery. The symptom he had was loss of peripheral vision in his left eye. Another symptom of a partially detached retina is seeing lots of floaters. If you experience either of these, please go see the eye doctor immediately.
Here are the highlights:
Andy did not sing a word of the songs at his pre-school program but he did enjoy ringing the jingle bells. As the children got started, I leaned over to Joe and said, "I wonder how many thousands of dollars of camera equipment are in the church right now"? The cameras and video cameras were rolling.
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| Andy and his pre-school class before singing songs for Advent night at the church. He is in the front row, last one on the right. They were all wearing garlands of tinsel as their halos. |
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| Andy and Daddy having fun with Andy's halo after the program |
George, Mary and I traveled to Clinton, Iowa the weekend of Dec. 3 to be with my sister Julie and her family. Julie's father-in-law passed away at the end of November and the funeral was Dec. 5. They traveled to Iowa from their home in southern California to be at the funeral. Since they had not met Mary yet and were going to be only a few hours away, we drove up to see them for the weekend. Mary did fantastic on her first road trip. George was a good companion too, the traveling to and from went smoothly.
Benjamin's 6th birthday was December 4 so we celebrated with him. George and Benjamin are best buds when they get together. It was a quick trip and worth every penny spent. Alex and Emma were "fighting" over who's turn it was to hold Mary. Juile asked Alex what he thought of Mary and he said, "I just love her".
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| George and Benjamin at the giant play area in Happy Joe's pizza. We went there to celebrate Benjamin's birthday. I got to have the best taco pizza around. Yum! |
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| The Cousins, Emma (10) , Mary (2 months), Benjamin (6), Alex (12) and George (5.5) |
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| Aunt Julie and Mary |
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| Uncle Sean and Mary |
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| Benjamin and George |
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| Alex, Benjamin, George, Emma, and Mary |
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| The "oh my goodness we didn't get a picture of the two sisters" picture. Julie and Jennie. We had just finished lunch and I was leaving to get on the road. Julie borrowed her winter coat from our little sister since she doesn't really need on in CA. |
Mary was two months old on December 6.
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| Mary on her 2 month birthday |
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| George, Red Guy, Mary, Zack and Andy |
We got a babysitter for all 4 kids for the first time so Joe and I could attend Fabick's 1st Annual Sales Banquet at the Renaissance in St. Louis. The kids did great, the babysitter was wonderful and we enjoyed a fun evening out on the town. It was nice for me to start putting more faces with the names of the people Joe works with at Fabick. As they were sharing the various numbers about the company's performance from the year, it brought back memories from my years of working at Caterpillar. I even remembered quite a few of the acronyms they used.
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| Joe and Jen at the sales banquet |
Joe was invited to a Green Bay Packers football game by a supplier who's facilities are based in Wisconsin. How could he pass up that opportunity? Due to flight cancellations, he ended up driving to Green Bay but he made it for the game on Dec. 11 vs. the Raiders. It was his first visit to Lambeau. What a treat! The Packers won and he even got to try on a Super Bowl ring.
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| The Green Bay Packers' Super Bowl ring from 2011. Joe met one of the Packers' board members and he lets people try on the ring. How cool is that? |
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| Joe's view at the game. 70,750 in attendance |
The boys made their gingerbread house and actually put most of the candy on the house. It's an amazing (as my little sister used to say). They took it into school for the gingerbread house display they do for a week during December.
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| George, Zack and Andy with their gingerbread house |
Zack and George performed in their Christmas program on December 20. The program was the day after Joe's eye surgery and Joe made it there, eye patch and all. I saw both boys singing, they did a nice job. Zack has gotten better over the years with the singing and George gets right up there and goes for it. Zack also had a reading and spoke very clear and slow.
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| George (wearing the argyle sweater) |
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| Zack doing his reading |
