Pausing to think...

Next week is our anniversary on the 22nd and then Christmas 3 days later! We've been married (not quite) 4 years. Seems like a lot has changed since 12/22/07! We've graduated from college, started working full-time (er...sort of), moved a bunch of times, more than quadrupled our living space (now, that's crazy!) from our tiny apartment in Presidential, bought a car, and adopted two crazy kittens! I was texting one of our friends from Tuscaloosa the other night who we haven't seen in forever, and it really made me miss all of our friends from college. It's sad that we've all moved away, gotten busy, and don't see each other much anymore...except at weddings it seems like! I really do like living up here for the most part, but I just wish we could transplant all of our friends into our neighborhood! I'm determined to plan a reunion for sometime next spring or summer either here at our house or at the lake house, and I'm going to plan it far enough in advance that I better see everyone there!! :)

Back to our anniversary...I think the plan is that we're going to go out to eat at Ruth's Chris either for lunch or dinner (not sure yet) before heading to Trussville for a few days for Christmas! Neither of us have eaten at Ruth's Chris before, but we've got a gift card expiring on 12/30 so it seemed like the perfect time to go. Hope it's good!

I think we're pretty much finished with our Christmas shopping and just about everything is wrapped and under the tree. Hooray! We even mailed out our Christmas cards yesterday! I don't know how we got so far ahead this year, but I'm going to attribute it to our online shopping. We bought almost everything in one sitting on a Monday evening...very nice!

I've worked 4 out of the last 6 days, which is a lot for me, so I'm enjoying a day off today. Doing laundry, dishes, putting clean sheets on the bed....pretty typical for a Wednesday. I'm going to go run this afternoon in the neighborhood...it's supposed to get up to 70 degrees today! Have I mentioned before that I'm teaching the K-1 class at church? It's been going pretty well so far. I just have 3 kids in the class, so I can handle that (most of the time!). I'm almost through with my first teaching session, and I'm starting another one next Wednesday.

Felix and Gabby are as adventurous as ever. Here are some kitty pictures from the last week...

I think Gabby was taking a break from giving Felix a bath! Doesn't he look so excited? :)

Gabby loves the bathtub window!

She also loves to sit on that ledge!

Felix usually follows behind, of course...

Mom had her 7th chemo treatment on Monday. Only 1 more to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After her last treatment, she'll have a 3 week break (most likely) before starting radiation. Hopefully she'll be done with everything by early March! I'm heading down there tomorrow morning and staying probably until Friday night. Thanks for your prayers and thoughts for her so far! Keep 'em coming! We'll have to plan a big celebration in March when she's all through.

This holiday season I'm trying to do a better job of not getting so caught up in all of the craziness and instead, being thankful for great family and friends and a whole lot of other things. Hope you're having a wonderful week and counting your blessings too!

"God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say 'thank you'?" ~ William Ward


Erin