Happy New Year & Christmas Re-caps!

First and foremost, we want to wish everyone of our readers a Happy New Year. We pray that 2012 blesses you beyond measures! I can sometimes get sad over the ending of a year and starting of a new one, but this year I have challenged myself to look at 2012 as a positive change! 2011 was an incredible year for us; it was our first year as a married couple and we bought a beautiful home. If 2012 even has half the blessings that 2011 did, we will be good! :)

Secondly, I have so many updates that I need to get out. With the business of the season AND a winter cold I am feeling pretty behind the 8 ball on this one. Sorry about that! I seemed to catch a cold last weekend, and it hit suddenly this week. I actually stayed home from work yesterday (which is unlike me) to rest and hydrate. Today I am back at work, and feeling much better-but still not good. I pray that this cold leaves quickly and soon because we have another family Christmas celebration this weekend. It would be wonderful if I didn't have to worry about spreading germs and was able to enjoy the time with family celebrating the birth of our Lord! Please pray for that, will you?

Now, I will talk about Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas with my parents and brother in Indiana. It was the first time I was not home in Florida for Christmas. While I expected it to feel weird, or something-it really didn't. It felt right. Not that I did not think about or miss my family in Florida that we would have spent the day with; because I did. But it was nice to spend Christmas in our home, in our state and with my parents. By the way, this was their first trip to Indiana!

Christmas vacation started Thursday night for me because I did not have to work on Friday. The hubster did have to work, but his day ended up being short enough that we were able to get lunch together at Cerulean's and do some shopping, too. What a blessing that was! After shopping the afternoon away, we headed home for what I thought would be a relaxing evening. Well, it wasn't. I was taking a bubble bath when Stephen started yelling about something with Louie. I got out to find that Louie was doing something that looked like a seizure, foaming at the mouth, and unable to control/move his back legs. We panicked and called out vet. Thankfully our vet has an emergency line at all times, so we talked to a Dr. right away and he met us at the clinic in about 30 minutes. I was able to calm Louie down, get some water in him and convince myself that everything would be okay. By the time we went the vet he was walking and using his back legs-thank the Lord!  The vet said that after that long if we still was not using them it would have been a bad, bad sign. As it turns out, Louie had a pulmonary embolism (blood clot) from his heat worm treatments. He was treated at the office Friday night with several shots and we were under strict orders to watch him very closely and keep him calm. I set my alarm an got up every 2 hours Friday night to make sure he was okay and breathing steady. It was such a scary night for all of us!

Saturday, we stayed home and did things to tidy up the house before my parents arrived.

We planned on going to church for the Christmas Eve service but I was worried about my parents arriving while we were there. Mom, Dad and Hunter had left Florida around 3am, so they had a ETA of 8pm...which was right in the middle of our church service. Regardless of timing, we decided to go to church :) We snapped some pictures before leaving:

You can't see the tree behind us, but this was our Christmas Eve in front of the tree picture!

As it turns out, God had other plans for our Christmas Eve. Mom & Dad did make it to our town while we were at church and they killed time by stopping at McDonald's for dinner (it was the only place open). All the while, we were at church but I started feeling bad. I checked my blood sugar before going to church it was good, but when we got there it was much lower. About 20 minutes into the service it dropped even lower-to the point where I was seeing spots. I let the hubster know what was going on and he said we should leave. Focusing on getting to the car where I knew we had glucose tabs hidden in the glove box, I didn't even realize what time it was. We headed home and got there about 10 minutes before my parents pulled up.

Had we not left church early because of a low blood sugar they would have been stuck sitting in our driveway waiting on us...after a 16 hour drive. Had I been in their shoes, I would not have been happy about that. So, see how it all worked out? God knew what he was doing!

After greeting my parents and introducing their dog, Bristol to Louie-the men started unloading the truck. What a load they had brought up with them! Along with their luggage for the week, they also had gifts from them ("Santa"), other family members, friends, a antique chair that was my great-grandma's, a 9.5ft artificial Christmas tree for us to use next year (YAY!), and a few other things. The truck was FULL! After all the unloading, Mom & Dad went to bed pretty quickly. Hunter stayed up with us while we rearranged the gifts under the tree so it was pretty (my idea), and caught up a little before going to bed.

I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve again because I could.not.sleep! I was just so overjoyed with my parents being in Indiana and guests in my house and the fact that the next morning was Christmas morning!

Childlike joy is an awesome thing!

Christmas Morning/Day coming up tomorrow!