Holiday fun

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We kicked off the day going to Regional Hospital - the hospital where Ryan and I work. We take care long term ventilator patients - people who can't get off the breathing machine. Regional specializes in getting them off but as you could expect this is the end of the line for these people, so if they can't get off here they are ventilator dependent for the rest of their lives. Some of these patients are neurologically totally with it but can't talk due to the breathing machine and have been there for months. Ryan and I have been taking turns caring for these certain 4 patients. All of them are completely with it. One of the ladies have been there since July and had failed for a second time getting her trach removed. She was crushed and has been struggling. So I thought we could bring our boys in and make their day. Having a couple work as nurses at the same place is somewhat of a rarity, so to get to meet the whole family was really fun for them. We had to gown up in every room as by the time you have been in the hospital this long most people have resistant bacteria - if they didn't come in with it. The boys were great. Soren is so sweet to sick people. Xander of course was asking a million questions. "Why can't they talk?" "What is that bag?" "Why is it yellow?" ect. By the time we left he would meet some of the staff and ask. "Mom, why do they talk like us?" - like he forgot that most people can actually talk. We then went to a 3$ movie theater for the first time with our whole family and saw toy story 3. Xander had never been to a theater and he did awesome. Lastly we hit Ryan's parents house for the traditional part of Thanksgiving. Earlier in the week of course we got to play in the snow. We went to a local park and went sledding. Even though the grass is showing the sledding went great. They boys would trudge up the hill and sled down it all by themselves! It was awesome. I would wait for them at the bottom because there is a fence right at the end and I would slow them before they would ram the fence. A good time for all was had.


Our first snowman. It was so cold that our snow was very powdery - odd for here. It took a while to get the snow to compact.
Lastly I finished putting up our Christmas lights. I am so excited. Every year I dream of Christmas lights bu felt a bit intimidated by them. I think it was because I did know how to secure them. All I could think of was nails and I never wanted to put holes in my trim. Well, today I learned of plastic clips, deposited a lot of money and became empowered. Lights are an investment! Gesh - that was half the pain, but now that the check writing is over and I super happy. I have a 5 year plan in adding more lights every year and then by the times Soren is 10 we will have a masterpiece! Until then I thought it was a good beginning.