Take the Good, take the Bad & there you have the Facts of Life

We hope that everyone had a fantastic Christmas and that Santa brought you everything on your list. We had a crazy holiday this year. It was different/hard with Michael being away (but he was on web-cam so that was cool), we lost someone very dear to us on Christmas Eve and that sucked (sorry, but there was real no other way to say it), our Christmas celebrations were great and Xavier was SO much fun, and then Sunday I had to take Lilly to the vet hospital for an emergency surgery. Can you talk about a roller coaster holiday? Needless to say, I am ready to close the book on 2008.
Here is Xavier on Christmas Eve while we were getting ready for Santa. He was just a little excited.
The cookies, milk and the note...Santa only ate 1 of the cookies and Xavier was all upset because he didn't eat all of them. Note to self, less cookies next year or put them away.

The tree after Santa left all of the presents.

Xavier with Red. This is actually one of the few things Xavier got that wasn't Thomas related.

I added this picture because you can see the web-cam set up in the background behind Xavier. You can see Michael watching on. Technology is so awesome that Michael was able to see Xavier open all of his presents and then we had it again at Michael's brother's house so it was like he was there.

We were all rocking out at Jeff & Sarah's. Xavier loved the drums!

Rock on Xavier!!

Caleb, Tyler & Xavier

My families Christmas was on Saturday. Here is a picture of some of the grand and great grand-kids.

A while ago I noticed Lilly had a "zit" looking thing on her back. It was small and did not seem to bother her so I was keeping an eye on it but did not think too much about it. Saturday when I got home, there was blood down her back and there was now a huge mass. Not to get into too much detail, but there was an infection and it all "came to a head." I called the doctor as soon as they opened on Sunday, I brought her in and they immediately took her in for surgery to remove all of the bad parts, etc.

I have to keep the cone on so she doesn't mess with the stitches or drain because if she does they have to re-do everything.

My poor little girl! She gets the drain out on the 1st and then the stitches out maybe a week later. We can only hope we leave all this bad stuff behind us as we leave 2008. Hope you all have a Happy New Year!!

**Make sure you check out the 2 posts below. Michael added pictures!!!**

another one

Here is another pic of the platoon with names of everyone in platoon. Also notice the brown buildings in the backround. The buildings are the barracks we live in. Each door is a room where 3 to 6 people live. The door in the middle of the building is the bathroom so it sucks we have to go outside to get to the bathroom.

Almost done

I know I have not posted on here like I said that I would. The army has been monitoring blog sites looking for violations in security. We have been really busy here with patrols and missions. I have also been taking classes online so I have been really busy. I will try to post more since its getting close to time to go. Here is a pic of Bravo Co. 1st platoon.

St. Nicholas Day!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!
Xavier was so excited to put his shoes by the door last night and then to find a Thomas Christmas movie, Thomas Christmas book and Christmas PJ's this morning!!

Since today is St. Nicholas Day I figured what a better day to see Santa! Xavier did great this year. He couldn't wait to run up to Santa and tell him he wanted Duck the Train. We are counting down the days!