Summing up

We have been settling in at home. Carl was not able to come home for Thanksgiving we went to my brother Andy's house in Ohio and had a blast. The kids had a great time with their cousins and it was nice to be around adults for a change. Madison and I are having fun with our outings during the day. She is really enjoying her mom time. We go to the YMCA each day she likes playing with the kids and I like riding the stationary bike. I get an hour to read without interruption while I am doing something good for my health.

Carl arranged to come home for Christmas break so I got all my cookies for my plates done before he gets home so it didn't take up our time with him. We drove to Virginia to pick him up. It was so great when he came to the hotel, I started to cry. The kids were so thrilled and it was really great to be all together again.

We took goodies around and even sang to a few of the people. We just had a really great time getting ready for Christmas and hanging out.

I think Carl and I were more excited for Christmas than the kids were. We had the inside scoop and knew that Santa was going to be dropping off a puppy.

That morning the kids came down and saw the puppy and presents and were over the moon. The puppy took most the attention for a while but then they got to opening presents. We settled on Yoshi for his name, we had an Australian Shepherd before and we wanted to keep the tradition of using Russian words that describe them. Our previous dog was Lapka which means paw because he had such big paws. Yoshi means Hedgehog, he is all fluffy and he is soo cute. Carl had pet hedgehogs when he was on his mission and so we thought it was fitting. Sometimes he reminds us so much of Lapka, we slip and call him Lapka. He and Carl have bonded really well and the girls love to chase him and be chased by him.

We played with all our games and really, really love Rock Band. We started a family band and we have one with our friends here. Their teenage daughter says we are too old to be playing that game. I asked her what she thought she would be doing at our age. I find it so funny cause I can look back when I thought back when I was her age and I probably thought the same thing.

We went to Florida on Madison's birthday to see Carl's sister Jessica and her school marching band compete to play at the football game half time. It was a lot of fun and we loved seeing her, we only wish we had more time to visit.

Shortly after Carl had to go back Bahrain but he should be back by the 14th. We will be really happy to have it all settled and be together again.