It has been unseasonably warm so far this fall/winter. There have been a few days with cold weather, but not many. When it is so hot that you break a sweat walking to your car and you are wearing tshirts and flipflops instead of boots and sweaters it makes it really hard to find your holiday spirit. I keep hearing the ‘Where are you Christmas’ song playing in my head.
Casey has been very full of holiday cheer this year. She has been pretty funny about it. When we ask what she wants for Christmas and start going through a list she says yes to everything. I guess that at least makes it easy to shop for her. She has been super excited about every gift she has opened so far too.
We have been pretty busy so far this month. We had the 2nd annual angel ornament celebration on December 3rd. We had a really good turn out and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We then met a group of volunteers on Sunday the 6th to decorate the tree with the ornaments. The following Saturday, the 12th, we had our annual Special Needs Holiday Party. This was our biggest and best yet. We had lots of people from the community reach out to help us make this an amazing event. We are already looking forward to planning next years.
Since I was working the party on the 12th, Casey was with Tim most of the time. She was so happy every time I checked in. She really loves daddy-daughter dates. She is such a daddy’s girl. I was so happy that she was having a good day and enjoyed the party. Seeing her that much more happy because she was enjoying it with her daddy was more special than I can ever put into words.
This weekend was pretty busy too. On Saturday we had an open-house(garage) and invited our neighbors to stop by for holiday treats. A few made it, but not as many as we had expected. I think everyone was busy with last minute holiday stuff. Casey hung out with the neighbors and then Santa came by on the fire truck. They do this every year in our neighborhood. It’s pretty cool.
On Sunday I met the photographer that did the palliative care photo essay with Casey and 2 other families at a local news station. They interviewed us about the project and showed lots of the photos that she took. It was fun to go down to the studio.
Check out the segment from KVUE.
Before I left Sunday morning I popped the turkey into the oven and then got home to help my mom finish up some other dishes. We had my side of the family over for a late lunch and family Christmas. I was really looking forward to having all of the family together for Christmas. Casey had a really rough day though and was not up for much. She was kind of a mess all day. Since she was such a mess I never got a chance to get any cute pictures of all the cousins or really even talk to the rest of the family much at all. After everyone left that afternoon I picked her up to see if I could get her to calm down and get more comfortable. She had a good bit of blood in belly (not a new thing, just something that we know makes her miserable). We got her all fixed up and she just rested the rest of the evening.
Yesterday she read some of the new books she got and checked out some of her new pony toys. She was still recovering from the weekend, but seems to be feeling better. I had a radio interview that afternoon. This was my 4th year to be the Christmas(ish) interview for KOOP Radio’s Reflections on Community Outreach. Each year I go in and give them an updates on our special needs projects (like the holiday parties) and then of course an update on Casey. It’s fun. I actually like doing radio interviews.
Casey is enjoying a slow week this week. She did have OT, but no PT or school this week. We have some friends coming by on Christmas Eve, and then that evening we will do Tim’s side of the families gifts and call his family while they are all over at his mom’s. On Christmas we will keep it pretty low-key. We’ll have a nice breakfast and do our own gifts and Santa stuff with Casey. After lunch my grandpa, my sister and her boyfriend will stop by for a little bit.
Our nursing schedule is a little bare, but luckily Tim is off the week between Christmas and NYE to help out. We do have a nurse so that we can finally see Star Wars!!! We are pretty excited about that. The last 3 we saw on opening night at Grauman’s. We got a little spoiled with big movie premieres while in Los Angeles. Austin has nice theaters too, and we have kind of out grown doing the midnight premieres too. Instead of midnight, we are now part of the noon matinee crowd now.
We hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. Here’s to 2016 being a great year!!
