Holidays

The week before Christmas was my neice, Jessica's, wedding.  Crazy wedding with tons of family coming into town and an amazing wedding service and message...

and then an awesome party and dancing...

Dancing with people who aren't there...(couples dance - Joe dances with Hannah who he left in Seoul..)

K'maya gets down in a major way!

And even mom got on the floor!

A great wedding, a great time with family and friends!

The weekend before Christmas was our Christmas service at our church.

And then we got to go up by some friends and enjoy the nutcracker ballet with our friend Jen and her two girls playing parts in the production.  I was actually very impressed with the ballet and then we got to go out and have a nice Japanese dinner to finish the evening!  Very enjoyable Sunday indeed!

Christmas Eve was spent with quite a bit of family at Uncle Raines with too much food and family and fun and music and a Christmas play!  And especially Sean getting to know my family and them him - for better or for worse!:)

Christmas morning Sean and I did gifts and breakfast at his place with Mr Calvin!

Christmas Day was at moms.  Again - too much food!  But good family time!  And for the second year the Christmas crackers I got had those whistles in them so we attempted to play some tunes with our whistle orchestra.  Not great, slightly frustrating?  But I think it will be a good memory:)

And then some time downtown with friends and Seans daughter and her boyfriend.  A great Saturday afternoon and very thankful for new relationships and for fellowship and sharing!  And especially overwhelmed by our friend who is sacrificing quite a bit to care for someone very important.  I was so overjoyed to meet the glowing face that I've seen in many pictures!  My prayers are with them and that delightful little chubby legged angel!

Next week it's a little bit of work and then midweek off to celebrate New Years with the Gartlands in Florida!  Too excited to see all of them and be back down there again!

Taking Some Time To Recombobulate

It's been a while and a lot has happened so it's now time to stop and Recombobulate!  This is from my last flight out - I flew from Milwaukee as it was cheaper.  Beautiful, dead MKE!  There was no one at security and it took me 10 minutes and a stop at one of my favorite bookshops in the airport to get to my gate!

To start - for work we did 12 Days of Christmas and each department or two departments were assigned a day where we could do anything we want.  We did an amazing race Christmas edition.  We had like 8 different stations that a team had to go through like

Bad bowling...

Airplane making and flying 

Donut eating contest 

Egg drop 

Pallet packing 

Among other things!  And then we tallied points and the winning department got these pretty awesome crazy statues and medals.  Made work fun for - 12 days!

And Calvin update - he's kicking butt on the walking thing!  I bring him to the dog park often and he'll walk around it.  He's walked the whole street a few times.  He can get up by himself and he can get on and down the stairs outside by himself.  I still have to carry him upstairs at night - he won't brave all those steps.  And if I leave him downstairs at night he'll just bark so - I build my muscles and carry him upstairs every night!

Oh - new addition for me..  I bought my bff's bookcase and was able to get a couple more boxes of books from storage!  Yay!

Last weekend brought a trip to Minneapolis where we met my said BFF and we all stayed in a nice hotel with room service and a pool for the weekend!  I had to go into one of my accounts there on Saturday and got to see their beautiful new processing department!

My Sean-earrings for dumped down the sink by the maid and maintenance had to come up and take the sink apart and - yay - I got my earrings back!!!

Saturday night we brought Mel and her daughter and a friend to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and then we went and ate at this pretty amazing Caribbean and southern fusion place - delicious!

Sunday morning Sean and I went to breakfast and church with his daughters. Good time and very interesting church service!

And two times in this past month I worked in Denver where I got to stay with one of my good friends and even got to work in her processing department.   This past Denver trip as soon as I landed I was called and texted that I shouldn't come to Denver because our install had been cancelled!  I ended up getting to stay with Patti and do breakfast on Thursday morning before I flew out!  

 I even got to see her knew apartment - if you squint, in the distance here you can see Pikes Peak!

And now this weekend will bring more blog news - but it's to come!...

Weekend Of Sean, Church And Dog

This weekend was crazy - but at the same time fun and relaxing - but mostly crazy!

Saturday morning was the Crossway Church Ladies Christmas lunch which I attended with mom and Pat.  There were almost 500 ladies there and it was very - lady-ish!  

After lunch I took Calvin out for a little ride and fun times with a visit to Petsmart!  He did awesome walking on the slippery floor and even had enough strength to pull me over to the cat cages, as well as try to break into a bag of dog food!  He was quite mischievous - but it actually made me happy to see after all he's been through!

Then Sean picked me up to do this little area tour of art studios... Interesting but lame.  We were gonna do two studios, of which one was a room in a barn and the other was - closed.   And our attempted selfie at the first barn studio resulted in this because the owner was smarty pants and decided to pop out and make smart comments about charging for selfies...

Saturday night I went over to Pat and Randys to catch up on Grimm and Cal had a nice relaxing nap with his neice Bailey!

Sunday morning, Sean joined Crossway which made us both members at the same church!  He's the bright blue shirt shaking hands with Pr Bullmore!  25 new members in total?  Something like that.

And Sunday afternoon he helped me put up Christmas lights!  It's nice to have help - not that I haven't done it by myself, but it's always more enjoyable having Sean help!

And then we did movie night at his place.  A great weekend in total!  It's nice not having to full on care for Calvin with catheter bag and not being able to walk. He's getting back to being more self sufficient!  Yay!

Can't Forget Thanksgiving!

I just realized I never posted anything about thanksgiving!  I got kind of overwhelmed with Calvin, but life goes on right!?!

So Thanksgiving morning, Sean and I and his younger daughter and her friend went up to Mikwaukee to participate in this Thanksgiving service to shut ins in the area.  We delivered 6 meals to four different locations, spent some time praying and conversing with these people who tended to be all alone on the holiday!  It was a good time helping others out on a day when we have so much to be thankful for!  And it's all thanks to Sean!  It's something that he's done for the past several years so it was awesome to join in and serve with him!

Then we went back to his place and made a green bean casserole and then we took it over to Pat and Randys with the casserole and joined a huge houseful of family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving!  Tons of food!  Too much food!  Three places full of food!  Stuffed tummies and fun conversation!

And then!  Our traditional band... Well..  It ours because I'm not in it :). And this year, Sean got to join with my nose flute gift to him!  Good times at the Lee Thanksgiving!

Calvin Update

So Calvin had the surgery to put a metal plate over the fracture in his pelvis.  The surgeon was really pleased with the results and Calvin was sent home on Saturday.  Now, not even a week later, Calvin can shuffle along with help and he can stand up without any help - well stand by himself once he's up not put himself into a standing position, he's not that much of a genius:). 

He last time we went in to the speciality hospital they gave this harness thing with handles to help him stand up and walk.  It's like he's a portable dog:). It's a wonder thing though!  I'm sure he hates it at some level but it really has helped in getting him up and walking!

We got outside on a regular basis.  He still has his catheter in but we have to practice walking and standing so we can get that thing out on Monday and he can go outside to pee!

Last night we took a walk around outside to bring the garbage out and then we came back in and he laid in the kitchen with his Airedale baby and kept me company while I baked cupcakes.

Please continue praying that he gets stronger and can walk on his own so we don't have to help!  It's exhausting for both of us!  Pat and my dog walker Michelle have been life savers wih coming to help get him up and walking! Progress seems to be steady!  He h a little bit of nerve damage that affected his right foot and made his foot flip so that he was walking on the back of his paw.  The surgeon said that the nerves would heal over time and i know they're not completely healed but he tends to put his foot flat more and more now!

Little Tiny Baby Puppy

To quote Ioana...:)

Today I had Calvin at the Speciality Animal Hospital.  Monday he had an accident with a car and his pelvis is fractured.  They were very positive about him and he's in good health and no other problems and so they wanted to do a surgery to put a metal plate on his pelvis to join the fracture and heal it.

So - I left tiny baby puppy at the hospital this afternoon.  He's pitiful as he saw me and he wanted to get up and I left and he was trying to get up.  

If you think of it, he should have surgery tonight at 10 pm.  Please pray it goes well, pray that Cal doesn't have a lot of pain and pray he recovers quickly.  They say he should be up and walking in 24 hours - like human ortho surgery - the sooner they're up the better.

And please pray for me ... :(

Little tiny baby puppy ....

It's 9pm - update... Me Coolidge came through surgery splendidly!  It was a bad fracture but the surgeon said he was pleased!  Now we pray that he continues to heal and walks well after some healing!

Thanks for your prayers!

My Weekend With Deer and Friends...

This weekend Sean and I headed up to Minnesota early Saturday morning to help   my BFF ... with my BBF:). Mel is looking to rent her basement out so she needed to get some things taken care of and Team Sealison (pronounced Shalison:) came to help!

So while I took the hard part of talking to, getting pedicures with and taking Mel out to dinner, Sean was lazing around under a sink trying to get faucets connected and water running!  That man seriously single handedly installed a new toilet, a new sink and vanity, new light fixture, new medicine cabinet and new shower head in Mels downstairs bathroom.  He was a freaking amazing Bob Villa --- no, better than Bob Villa because my Sean Villa is extremely cute and sweet too!  Bathroom - DONE!  

Poor guy worked his tail off all weekend until about 1 pm and then Team Sealison hopped back in their awesome mobile and hit the road home.  

So here's a new discovery - Minnesota - November ....

 

In case you're having a hard time telling what's protruding from the backs of those trucks...

DEER - DEAD DEER!  Piled up, strapped down, legs flapping, tongues lolling ... Dead dead deer!  Soooo disgusting!

So Sean drove straight from Rochester to Ohare and dropped me off.  I'm now standing in line for a 10:30 pm flight to Denver.  We're doing two trials there - hoping to get out Tuesday night but right now scheduled to come home Wednesday afternoon:(.  We'll see!

My Adorable Boy!

No I'm not referring to Sean, although he is adorable!  

The adorable I'm referring to today is my baby Calvin!:). 

Over the weekend I cleaned all around the house - weeded, put lawn furniture away.  And all the while I did this, Calvin took up different positions around the yard, always in leaf piles.  He loves leaf piles!

And then today I dropped him off at the groomers.  I had him on the leash and the groomer opened the little half door to the back "waiting" area where he has large kennels.  As the groomer opened the door I took Cal off his leash and the groomer was talking to me so he didn't grab Cal's collar right away.  So as we were finishing our conversation, Calvin walks into the back area and walks right back to an open kennel, walks into the kennel and just lays down, looking out at as as we finish talking.  Oh my word!  I could have died it was so adorable!  And SMART!  But he takes after me that way - adorable and smart!:)

He'll be so happy to come home with a short hair cut because he's been SO hot lately, even in the cooler weather.  My adorable Airedale!:)

Japanese Catch Up

It's sounds like an Asian condiment doesn't it?:)

I'm standing waiting for washers to run so I figured I'd take a few to finish up posts from last week.

Back downtown at a facility doing some trials for a new company that may private label with us.  I feel so validated and back to normal being back on CS.  I love helping get dirty clean!  And then they have awesome new washers here!  The cart washer that they send the big carts through is beautiful!  

So my last two days in Tokyo were spent with my friend Seiko and her husband Drew.  Seiko and I spent the whole day together on Saturday.  We were going to go up to Nikko as was recommended to me, but Seiko was wanting us to take the bullet train up at 7:30 am and I had gotten back to the hotel at like 9 or 10 after a long day on the "road".  So we opted to just go shopping!  My happy place!

We headed down to a department store (which is actually just a store that looks like a department store but all the different departments are actually different stores.  My mission was shoes... They have awesome ones there!  We wandered through the whole department and every time I found a boot I liked Id ask for my size and they'd say the largest size they had was the one below me!:(. So sad!

Finally one woman volunteered that I should go to the 5th floor.  When we got there - I discovered why they didn't have my size!

It's a slam and a compliment - they consider me to be a larger lady!  But they consider me to be "model sized".  Ouch - hmm:)

We then went and got pedicures.  Me feet were horrible from walking all week.  Wasn't exactly the experience at home but still good!

We finished about 6:3 and got my bags from the one hotel I was staying at and switched to my new hotel.  It was gorgeous and had all these restaurants so we found a tempura place as we were starving.  Seiko then took the trail home and I enjoyed the massive jacuzzi tub in my room.

Great sleep Saturday night and then Sunday morning I got up and took the Shinagawa train to Shinjuku and then found my way to the express train to Chofu.  At Chofu, Drew met me at the train and then we walked and talked for about 15 minutes to their apartment.  What a difference from Tokyo!  There was open land and we walked past a little dairy farm by their house and Drew tried to call the cows - cows don't listen that well!:). We got to their apartment and Seiko was waiting to give me the grand tour.

Oh by the way, I have to show you on the train... Miss Purple.... Purple hair, purple clothes, shoes, bag....

Seiko, Drew and I then walked to their little Japanese church where Drew whispered the sermon to me... He did a pretty good job translating and once in a while Seiko would help out.  

Afterward they took a church Christmas photo which they insisted I sit in on.  Kind of funny but cute.  Then they had a little lunch where we sat around and tried to speak English together - some of them where pretty good.  We left around 1 and then walked around Chofu and ate lunch and did a little shopping for a friend of mine at home who used to live in Japan.

One of their favorite funny restaurants... They all dress like American Cowboys and they say "Hello" and "thank you" on English with their Japanese accents.

We all ended up going back to Shinjuku to get a few more things.  

So Japan makes me laugh because they love their hello kitty.  I told you about jackets and clothes and now, it they make construction a happy thing with hello kitty!

After finishing shopping we headed to dinner - my last Okonomayaki for the trip!  It's Drews favorite too so we all enjoyed this little downstairs restaurant together!

Sooooo good!

Monday morning I got to sleep in a little then I ate breakfast and took around the hotel grounds that were these beautiful Japanese gardens.

 

Ran and got some Starbucks and back in time to catch the bus to the airport!  I honestly was so ready and excited to be home!  I've been gone so much and I missed a lot of things!  The flight was actually overbooked that I was on so I was extremely grateful to be put on a direct flight instead of going through LA!  Just got me home earlier and back into Sean's car and arms!  It felt so good to be back there!

Last international trip of the year and I'm pretty sure I'm ok with that!