Wednesday morning, Matthew, Ruth Ann (my mother-in-law), the kids and I drove to Greenville for my colonoscopy. Honestly, I was very nervous. What if the doctor found cancer? What would that mean for my family? The Lord is good and filled the office with very sweet, friendly nurses. The doctor himself was a great man, and he and I had actually lived in the same neighborhood when I was in middle school yet we had never met. One of the nurses helping with my procedure had gone to the same high school as Matthew, just one grade behind him. Things went just as I hoped. The anesthesia was administered, I closed my eyes and opened them about 40 minutes later. My first thoughts were to tell the nurse, whom I assumed was one of my children, that she should go downstairs and find her own breakfast. I was sleeping GOOD!! Matthew assured me that the doctor said everything was great, nothing found in my colon! Funny how discussing your large intestine can bring such happiness.
The anesthesia used wears off pretty quickly so by the time I was in our car, I just felt that normal sleepiness after a good afternoon nap. We drove to Waffle House as I was looking forward to some grits and a plain waffle... solid food!!! These days we don't go many places without glances from strangers, hopefully smiles and not grimaces, and it proved true again as our party of three adults and five children took up two booths in WH. The food was yummy and we drove on into downtown Greenville. We were hunting festively decorated Christmas trees!
Upon not finding a parking spot for our Transit van near the Hyatt Regency, we continued on toward the Hampton Inn near the river. We found trees!
And here's a photo of Rylan to insure that he was along for the trip!
The next day was Christmas Eve. It brought tears and joy. The Christmas Eve service at our church is my favorite of all year. The carols, reading of the birth of Jesus in the Bible, and concluding with everyone holding candles. Jesus came to earth to bring light into this dark world! My mom had driven to GA to be with her mom and sisters for Christmas. My mother-in-law had driven to NC to spend Christmas with her other son, his family and newest granddaughter. My heart was missing my Dad very much. I wrote him a letter. I will write him a letter each Christmas and around his birthday in June each year. Writing to him helps me feel that he is still close.
After coming home for the service which was beautiful (Philip was asked to read Luke 2:1-20 and did a wonderful job!), we had our newest tradition... mystery gift swap. The last two years, I've wrapped up new pajamas in matching paper. This year, I had ordered "My Adventure Books", the kids' names are written into the stories of some of their favorite TV characters. So they each picked which wrapping paper they liked best....
And Philip got Barbie, Rylan got Disney Princesses, Braewyn got The Lion King, and Juliet got Star Wars. You can see that only one child was really upset! They swapped to receive the correct books and were excited to see themselves written in as characters in each story.
Sully's first Christmas!
I don't mind finishing the sugar cookie Santa left behind.
A neighbor gave us this nice 20-pound turkey which he was given free from work. I decided it was time, I am now 40 years old, that I cook my first turkey! Matthew always deep-fries them at Thanksgiving, but I prepared this bird and into the oven she went.
Four hours later, and with a much yummier smelling house, we had this beautiful turkey to eat!! It was fabulous and from the amount of leftovers, will be for a few more days.
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