Family Photos

These were pictures we had taken about six months ago. I finally had the time a couple weeks ago to get them scanned.

Christmas Day 2009

At the Pennys

At the Leveilles

Christmas Eve 2009

Sorry it took so long to get these out. Unfortunately, we forget our camera on Christmas so we were waiting to get pictures from other family members. (Still waiting on yours, Natalie!) Christmas eve was a lot of fun, but too short, as always. We went to 4:00 mass at St. Paul's and then drove down to Penrose for dinner and gifts. It was so nice to have everyone together this year...and no one was sick! There was even snow on the ground from a storm that swept through two days earlier.

Pete, Natalie, Justin

Terrible picture, just wanted to show the dress.

See, we do her hair once in a while.

Dad making...something.

December 2009...What a Month it Was

Hello everyone! Sorry it has taken so long to blog again. But in addition to preparing for the holidays and getting recertified for foster care, this whole cancer business has been an absolute nightmare. I am in the process of looking for a new endocrinologist, which in a city of 500,000, I have whole three to choose from. Aside from the fact I can never see or talk to my current endocrinologist, the office has had two major fuckups (excuse the language, but that's what they are) in the last month. One involving the processing of the wrong treatment orders (I'm not joking), and another involving a false positive pregnancy test that nearly ruined my chances of having a body scan done before the end of the year and costing us thousands of dollars. Once again my persistence paid off and I was able to prove I was not pregnant and have the scan completed before the end of the year. On a positive, the scan showed no sign of thyroid cells, cancerous or otherwise, anywhere else in my body. There is a moderate amount of thyroid cells still remaining in my neck, so we have to decide whether to pursue radioactive iodine treatment. At the very least, I am for sure cancer free! And as you can see from the pictures (I hope they are not too gross), my scar is healing quite well. I'm just tired of feeling like I have to fight for every little result, test, and treatment to get this done, especially with how close we are. I have enough to deal with.

Since I haven't updated on the family much lately, here is the rundown: The girls are doing great. Jade has been very happy to be home for the last couple weeks, and I have enjoyed having her home. Unfortunately, both the girls, as well as Justin and I, have been out for the count this last week with the flu. As awful as it was, we are glad none of us had it at the same time. Jade will be heading back to school on Tuesday, but not before a last hurrah at Chuckie Cheese tomorrow with the cousins. I think they deserve it after the week we had. Erica is our little firecracker. She has got a mind of her own and has no problem voicing her opinion. She has so much energy that I enrolled her in gymnastics to try and burn some of it off. Her group is comprised of 18mos-3year-olds and although she is one of the youngest, she can out perform everyone. I think she is a freak of nature. She is very physically gifted, just as Jade is mentally. Jade is also back in gymnastics and loves it. We are almost through an eight week session and will do one more before taking a break before summer swim lessons. Justin has had a good year for the most part. He was unfortunate to have his own medical issues with the discovery of kidney stones late this summer. Work has been going well. Justin is very excited that his office received the final approval to open their bank, which they did at the beginning of December. This should help create enormous opportunity for him and the company. The end of the year is always busy for him and it is also the start of tax season, which means long hours in the upcoming months. Well, I think that's about all for now. Hope you all had a great holiday. Next entry I'll put in pictures from Christmas.