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...