holiday letdown

while others are preparing for their thanksgiving holiday coming up, it feels to me as if the holiday is already over. we had our big thanksgiving dinner on sunday, 11/18, with all of jerry's family here and most of my family here. overall, we had about 30 people for dinner and to spend most of the day. it was great fun, but for some reason i didn't get many pictures taken.

we had jerry's mother, brother, 3 sisters and families, nephew and family, neice and child, son and family. on my side, we had my mother and husband, my son and girlfriend, and my daughter w/ her hubby and 2 little girls. there was SO much food here, i didn't even see it all.

we had a great dinner, lots of time to spend together as a family, beautiful weather so the kids could play outside, and a wonderful time to spend together being thankful for all that we have. after everyone left but our kids, we started the movie shrek the third for our evening. we snuggled down in our comfy seats w/ our blankets (at least raven and i did!) and watched the movie -- it was a great ending to a wonderful day.

i left jerry in charge of taking pictures that day -- we have 5 pictures and all of the same people doing the same thing. bad judgment mistake on my part, i guess, to give the camera to someone still on pain pills and recovering from surgery and say, "here, you take the pictures for today." i'll know better next time!

raven's preschool portrait

this is raven, one of my little princesses, last year at preschool just after she had turned 3 years old. she has always loved going to miss lorie's "prettyschool", which is how she says "preschool" when she's in a hurry. now it's just a habit and i think she thinks of it as "pretty school". she loves going SO much that even when she's sick, she thinks she needs to go to school.

here is her current picture, taken just after she turned 4. it was amazing to see the change in her, as i guess i don't notice the overall changes when i see her so often. she told me she had pictures taken and i asked her how she posed. she said, "he told me to put my foot out." i couldn't quite figure out what she was talking about, but she was excited about it so i didn't push for more info. after seeing the picture, now i know what she meant!

i was floored when i saw what a little lady she looked like in this picture -- so young and yet so grown up looking. i guess that's one of the best parts of parenting is that we can just sit back and watch them grow up. she's certainly going to run her parents around the block a time or two, and i'm sure i'm going to enjoy the show.

raven, memaw and grandpa are so proud of you and think you have a wonderful and bright future ahead of you!

jerry's "captain morgan" machine

well, now that knee replacement surgery is over, the fun part starts -- physical therapy! for the first 2 weeks at home, we had a home health care physical therapist who came to the house 5 days a week. now, we have 3 trips a week to physical therapy in town at the hospital.

based on the recommendations of the home health physical therapist, jerry got a knee bending machine. i'm not sure of the technical name for this equipment, but scott refers to it as "the captain morgan machine". i think scott feels rather safe giving jerry quite a bit of hassle, as he knows that jerry can't get up and do much about it. after all, he just has to stay out of cane-striking distance!

so between a list of exercises to do each day, walking around the house/porch or down the lane, and spending time in the "captain morgan machine," jerry also has plenty of time to play games on the computer, read, watch television, make work phone calls, sort the mail, and overall just go stir-crazy in the house. since his surgery, he's added the sports package to our cable, watched pay-per-views, downloaded the full games on the internet, and purchased more books online! at this rate, we can't afford for him to be house-bound much longer!

he rooked me into a trip to walmart the other day (i despise going to walmart) and he even rode to parsons w/ me when i went to teach class the other day. just getting out of the house was a huge treat for him. saturday, 11/10, was opening day of deer season, and it was tough for him to be stuck in the house while the boys were hunting. after all, last year, jerry got his deer right after season opened.

we were going to make a trip out somewhere, driving around and exploring, but just didn't get to it with everything else going on. maybe tomorrow will bring a day that has time for these little pleasures in life.