A relaxful holiday may have been too much to ask for...

This is going to be a quick post. Sad to say so far the holidays do not look relaxful at all. We've had a quick change of plans to our holiday season as we will be heading home earlier for the holidays. Mike's dad is in the hospital with heart problems so we are heading home bright and early tomorrow morning, like 4 am. We have also heard that my mother's surgery has been scheduled for January 8th. During this time for both families we covet your prayers, for health and also safe traveling mercies.
Hope everyone else is having a more relaxed holiday season. Wishing you all the best from our home to yours!! God Bless and Merry Christmas!

Tis the season...to finally relax, HOPEFULLY!

(I know I've been slacking, but Jenny, you will have to get over it.)

This past month has been a whirlwind of activity from saying goodbye to close friends, getting ready for Christmas and Mike finishing out the semester. Now that most of that has passed or will be drawing near soon I can finally say I have my husband back after surviving the hardest semester yet of vet school and soon we will get to see our families and celebrate Christmas with them.

Hammy has still been a handful. He definitely craves attention and if it can't be positive he is okay with getting disciplined and sprayed until he is soaking wet. He is in to everything from thinking the Christmas tree is a new toy to anything that I am trying to use, as you can see by these pictures. He definitely keeps us on our toes especially when he runs between our legs as we walk around, needless to say Mike and I have both been tripped multiple times.

The rest of the animals are doing really well. Cinder has been getting a break from Hammy as we have been locking him up during the days and at nights since we don't really want to clean our Christmas tree remains up off of the floor. Cinder had her 6th birthday at the end of October and Tiger will have his 6th at the end of January, the day after his daddy's birthday. It is hard to believe that they are that age especially since it seems like yestserday when they both were tiny. I know...Tiger is still tiny, however, from when we picked him out at two weeks old and even when we brought him home he could fit into just one of our hands. Here is a shot of the boys in front of the Christmas tree this year.

We did have to say, "See you later" to some of our friends this past month. We all got to help decorate the church together and even found time for a group picture. Tomorrow we will get to see Corey & Holly and after Christmas we will get to see Chris, Mindy & Luke also. Yeah for hanging out with great friends!! A definite reunion should be planned for the future.

The Manhattan Gang at the farewell luncheon

Here are some cute pictures of Luke from the night of Christmas decorating at the church. Lindsey made the quilt for him and he enjoyed rolling around on it and playing with the little animals that fit into the barns.

The guys had another marathon paintball day back in the early part of the month before Chris left and a new member has joined the Paintball Sympathizer Club. Jon has now joined the ranks of Anthony and Chris. While the guys were shooting themselves up all the girls got together to relax without them, imagine that. We all reconvened at our house for food, a Nazarene staple at every gathering, and then for a movie. Sadly we had to say goodbye to Mindy and Luke two days following and then to Chris a week later. We were much nicer to Mindy when she left, while with Chris...not so nice, as you can see. Even Jamie lended a hand! See Chris, you left your mark from the oldest down to the youngest in the group. And for anyone who doesn't understand the first picture, the only people that were nice enough to want to take Chris in and put up with him for two days was his new set of parents, Bobby & Lindsey Crawford, hence his name change.

Mike (and Lindsey) took their last final yesterday and last night was the first time in ages that Mike just got to veg in front of the TV with all of the animals on him. Not a textbook was opened, not even pharmacology. He even got to sleep in this morning, imagine that. Of course, since he isn't in school, now he is on-call until the morning that we leave to come home. Everyone needs to pray hard that his pager doesn't go off within the next week just so he can actually feel like he is on vacation. And if anyone, such as Chris, prays for the opposite they will reap revenge later, mark my words.

Tomorrow we head into Kansas City with our young adult (we use that term loosely in our group) Sunday School class for shopping, dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and to see the lights AND TO SEE COREY & HOLLY!!!!

And in one week we will be on our way home to DE and then to PA...It'll be good to see all of you back home! Until next time...

Thanksgiving...

This week has been full of plenty to do and now I can relax for the next few days while Mike has to study. No one ever said vet school was easy, and if they did they should give it a try for a few days and see if they can handle it. Mike has also been on call this week and once again luck is not on his side, every single day he has been called in twice. Yesterday he woke up, went into surgery, went and celebrated Thanksgiving with all of us and then got called in at 12:30 am again for a surgery that lasted about 5 1/2 hours. Needless to say, he slept in this morning.

We got to spend Thanksgiving yesterday with the gang here in Manhattan and we had a great time. There were 17 of us, including Lindsey's family from Minnesota. We had a good time eating, playing games, watching movies, and just laughing. As you can see in this picture, some of the guys couldn't even stop laughing while they were trying to swallow. And after everyone
stuffed themselves, some had to take naps during the day to recuperate, like baby Jamie.

The gang

Josh, Chris & Mike shouldn't be allowed
to sit by each other. (Any of these guys
together means trouble!!)

Jamie's first Thanksgiving was too exhausting

I also got the Christmas decorating almost done. Mike ended up being called in every time we started to decorate so I had to do most of it on my own, except when Hammy tried to help by relocating the ornaments to the floor. I guess he thought he wanted them down on his level. But finally Hammy relaxed and enjoyed sitting by his first Christmas tree and falling asleep, and later that night he enjoyed sleeping under the tree.

So Thanksgiving Break has been busy, but it has also reminded me that I have a lot to be thankful for. God has blessed Mike and I with so much, including our families back home and our friends and family here in Kansas. He has taken care of our every need from the time we started dating, to the time we got married and to when we packed up and moved 1300 miles away from all we knew. I will admit that I cried when I heard we were going to Kansas, but now I know those tears were in vain. I couldn't of pictured not being in Kansas during this time of our lives. Between the vet school and church, God has filled our lives abundantly and has blessed us with friendships that we would of otherwise never known. What a blessing to share Thanksgiving Day with those God blessed us with!

We hope that everyone had just as wonderful a Thanksgiving Day as we did! God Bless!

This is a totally new thing that I wanted to start since we have friends relocating and others all over the US. Hope this works out. This was the end of another week full of exams and studying for Mike (surprise there) while I continue to try and get all the other things done, including Christmas shopping and making preparations to head home at Christmas. We are so excited to be able to see our families and to see how much our nieces and nephew have grown. It is hard not being close to watch them grow up, but we enjoy the time we do have with them. Our little family keeps growing also. Hammy, who is only 5 1/2 months, now is bigger in size and weighs more than Tiger and is almost the size of Cinder. He is a beast! He recently went in to visit the vet to prepare for him to lose his manhood, and he weighed in at ~8 1/2 pounds. He survived the surgery and doesn't seem to hate us for it. His personality is back, and during these cold winter months his affection will come in handy with keeping me warm. He's a lover! The pictures can help you compare how much he has grown and how big he is now.

Hammy when we first brought him home (July 17, 2006)

Hammy now (November 19 th)

Here are some pictures of the rest of the clan also:

Cinder & Hammy

Henry right after we got him groomed so he wouldn't look like a Muppet.

Tiger enjoying his window seat at the new house.

And above is a picture of our new home (since June) for those who haven't seen any other pictures. It has been a blessing to have our own space and know that God has given this gift to us for our time in Kansas.

This week ahead is only a two day week of studying and school for Mike and for me at work also. Of course, when Mike isn't doing schoolwork he is on call at the hospital, so we are a bit limited on what we can do while we both have off. But either way it will be great to relax and spend time with friends, plus we will be setting up for Christmas (one of my favorite things to do). We are planning to have Thanksgiving with our "little church family" since we can't make it back east and also to enjoy the holiday with some of our friends that will be moving away soon. We will miss the Rozenbooms and Scotts, especially knowing that they are now part of our family and made our time here in Kansas all the better. It will be a sad couple of weeks ahead but we know that God has wonderful plans for them in Georgia and Iowa.

That is the latest from Kansas and the Marino clan for now...to be continued