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Seeing Him Twice in 2010!!!

Christmas Fun

Baby Kate enjoying her first Christmas in the States. 

Here I am with my Gran.  She is 85 years old.  We had Christmas at her house.  She cooked almost all the food, and boy was it great.

I love it when HH and I take pictures dressed up together.

Christmas Carolina Style

HH put ribbons up everywhere for the boys to get to their "big" Christmas surprise.  They boy got electric vehicles.

Our flight was a bit delayed coming in, but not too bad.  We will do a more formal Christmas dinner on Wednesday.  HH and I are here until Saturday. 

Here is the trailer to the movie of the book series I have been reading:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! 

The Holy Spirit really spoke to me last night, and I had a tearful few minutes concerning my sister and BIL.  Going to the hospital has been hard.  Jolting every time the phone rings not knowing if this is "THE" call is hard, hearing my sister cry has been hard.  We've been at the hospital Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and will be going later on today.  I became grateful last night.  Everyone wants to be there when life is good...anniversaries, birthdays, new babies, the promotion...but times like these are when most people fade away.  I'm really thankful that I can be here and help share in her suffering, although I cannot begin to understand what she is going through.  HH and I could be half way across the country, and I could be helpless to be there for her. 

Today I do have to talk with my brother.  He has been working like a madman, but I need to tell him that he has got to get to the hospital and see Matt again soon.  He has been faithful in calling my sister to check in, but I know she needs him to come up. 

He almost went back on a ventilator after we left last night.  If he doesn't improve significantly in the next two days he will.  He has not been on a ventilator since the first week of the accident.

Books for Christmas

It Comes in Threes Right?

1.  Two weeks ago HH got a ticket for running a red light.  Yeah, the cop just didn't give the ticket, but he had a major attitude and was nasty to HH.  When he told me, he was very upset.  We have NC tags.  When our tags came up for renewal in September of 2009, I told HH "lets chance it."  By that I was thinking we could be moving any time to another state where we will have to turn right back around and get it registered again.  In Kentucky you pay for your tags based on their worth every year.  The cop found this out, and we have to the registration updated by January 7th, which comes out to be about $1000.  The ticket will probably be between $150-$200.  This registration will only get us til June, then we have to pay about $350 for the next year.

2.  HH didn't get a job with the bank he applied for.  I attribute this to the toughness of the job market, and how many people who were competing for this position.

3.  Our electricity craziness: Remember how we lost electricity because they cut off power while we were in North Carolina?  HH has been pursing getting us some sort of reimbursement because it was wrongfully shut off, and we lost our entire refrigerator.  As part of the insurance process, they have to come out and make sure everything was wired correctly.  Our boxes were wired in reverse.  That's right for 5.5 years I've paid for her electricity, and she has paid for mine.  So they are doing a reversal to see if we have paid the correct amount of money to them.  I know that we have gotten away with murder in this department because the lady next door is often gone for weeks at a time, and has put her condo up on the market twice.  If she had half a brain, she adjusted her thermostat accordingly for when she was gone. 

The electric company will backdate for the last TWO YEARS, and we will receive a detailed account of this, along with a whopper of a bill.  I am estimating that we have easily underpaid $30-$50 per month.  The electric company is not required to make sure that everything was wired properly to the right box, but only that it will not catch fire or pose some other threat.  They have made sure they are off the hook of being liable.  We called the place that did the original electric work for the condo, and they are no longer in business.  We don't have a very strong homeowners association (they meet once a year), so I'm not sure they would be any help either.  We might try to pursue legal recourse, BUT, come January we are still going to be liable for this GINORMOUS bill.  The electric company in their charitable spirit said we could have 24 months to come current with our account. 

Throwing in a fourth thing for good measure....

4.  I went to the hospital today, and it was great timing for me to be there for my sister.  She just found out that after Christmas they are moving my BIL to a nursing home.  We knew this would eventually happen, but no one was expecting it anytime soon.  He is not sick enough to stay in the hospital (WTH?), and my sister has eight nursing homes to choose from with insurance.  That was narrowed down to four nursing homes because he has a trach.

Christmas Cheer

We went shopping on Friday afternoon, and HH posed for a few pictures for my delight.

Presenting HH and a few of his favorite things....

We have a thing for gnomes, just not weird ones!



This reminded him of Lilly our cat:

In trying to find Chase's hat, we found a few other cool ones.

On Saturday the family gathered for our small Christmas celebration as well as my dad's side big celebration.

Chase loved his hat and fighting set from the How to Train Your Dragon movie.  We had looked several places, and almost given up but found it at Wal-Mart.

Watching my mom open all her packages to get her Kindle was one of my favorite parts of Christmas. HH did such a great job of wrapping it up. On the last package there was a note that said, "Man, that was a lot of packages!" She was completely surprised by her gift.

Baby Lucas!

Siblings together:

Lovey Dovey Shots:

Boring Blogger

I'm been a boring blogger lately.  (Although when I searched for this image, I found it funny that it was the NASCAR image turned into a word that accurately describes it! Ha!) 

BIL Update:

Matt is doing ok.  (Meaning stable, but declining still.)  We went to visit at the hospital on Tuesday night and the neurologist was a complete rude lady.  HH said he didn't think she was rude, but that she was completely socially inept.  This was the first time she had seen Matt, and she shooed us out of the room while she was talking to the CNA.  When she came out she kept repeated "how bad he looked," as if she was preparing my sister for what she was about to see.  She asked for a few other details like how fast the car was going, etc.  My sister very politely said, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

To which she replies, "I didn't give you my name."  She waits about four seconds, and finally mumbles her last name.  She is ordering another EEG to see about brain activity.  I know this upset my sister, because she is afraid that it is going to show diminished brain activity from the previous time it was taken.

Matt entered the hospital at 214, and he now weighs 164 pounds.  They have taken him from a basic feeding tube food to a "protein dense" feeding tube.  I'm not sure if there is anything more they can do for him to slow down the weight loss. 

As of right now, we are going to have our family Christmas tomorrow evening, and HH and I will be making a few trips up there between now and then. 

In Other News...

We got three snow days this week: Monday, Thursday, and Friday.  I personally didn't want any until around February.  I really hated missing Thursday and Friday because we didn't get to do any fun Christmas activities.  Our elementary school is all about achievement, and heaven forbid we ever do anything that looks like it might resemble fun.  Right before Christmas break is one of those few times of exception when it is overlooked, and the kids get to be kids.  We've never missed right before Christmas break.  I don't remember in recent years ever having a snow day before January. 

I didn't do much of anything productive over my time off, but READ!  Yeah!  I am reading this book now:

This book is awesome!  My mom was so right!  I have the second book, and I think I will be purchasing the third book to read before break is over.  I have been telling HH almost everything that has happened thus far, and we've had some interesting dialogue over it.

Christmas cards still need to be sent out.  Sigh.  They are addressed though! 

We are going to watch Jingle All the Way.  It has become a family tradition for HH and I.

Interesting Info Graphic on Crime

Via: Criminology

What is Love?

This post is pretty much me bragging on HH.  I started writing this list, because of my best friend Mandi.  We've known each other for thirteen years.  We have gone through so many things, and learned how to become adults in the process.  Dating has been a big part of this.  She almost got married to a total loser, but thankfully three days before the wedding became extremely physically sick, and cancelled the wedding.  She has taken about a year to heal from that.  Now, she is ready to date again.  She got fixed up with a guy, and things seemed very promising.  He is a much better man than the one she was previously with, but he is not for her.  She is rationalizing things, knowing she ultimately needs to run.  One thing she was talking about was how he cooked her a romantic dinner and brought her flowers.  I told her that was nice, and every girl enjoys romance, but this is what love is to me (someone who is committed to marriage for the long road):

Love Is...

1. HH who eats at whatever restaurant my stomach can handle, and never complains about not being able to get McDonalds around me.
2. Sharpening a zillion pencils, packing treat bags, passing out papers...so I can do other important school work.
3. Making my dessert for me for work because I am too exhausted.
4. Eating a cheap meal so that we can spend more on our Christmas shopping for a needy student in my class.
5. Starting the car every single morning of winter, never complaining.
6. Working the Scholastic Book Sale so I can get free books from my classroom.
7. Sitting for hours at the hospital with my BIL.
8. Pushing me in a wheelchair when I was too tired to walk (I love museums, but they can physically wear me out.)
9. Going out to the grocery store or Starbucks to get something I am craving.
10. Giving my mom a foot massage.  (Wow did he get bonus points for doing that!) 
11. Watching random documentaries with me.

I could go on and on bragging about HH.