Hello everyone! We did have another great trip. As expected, we saw our share of Christmas trees, lights, and all kinds of cute decorations, so my not decorating the house was not a problem. I got plenty of Christmas in, for sure.
This was the trip when Bella warmed up to the characters. She did refuse to see a couple of them, and she kept a watchful eye on Prince Eric, but for the most part, she went right up to them with her sister. She saw some on her own a few times, too, when Brooklynn was busy with other things.
It was back to work today for all of us. I have almost fallen asleep twice, since I don't do a lot of sleeping on Disney trips. I am about to head home, do some laundry, fix a quick and easy supper, and go to bed early so that I will be ready to face my students tomorrow.
Jill and John came home to a leaking water heater. Luckily, it was not a huge leak, but the guy who came out to fix it said it was the installer's fault. His company installed it, so he fixed it for no charge. It's nice to know honest people. He didn't have to tell John about where the blame lay, but he did, and he took full responsibility.
A friend of mine is going to look at my laptop tomorrow and see if he can fix it. Until then, I'll just have to make do with being here when I am at school/ after hours/on breaks and when/if I can borrow Trent's. I am hoping it will be a simple fix, but I have a gut feeling it won't be. John and Jarvis both looked at it briefly, but they didn't see an obvious problem, so it's probably going to be something big. Someone here at school says it probably has a virus, so however long it takes to fix one of those is whenever I'll have my normal contact with the outside world again. I am sorry that I will not be able to catch up on some of your reports nearly as quickly as I would like.
We hope you guys enjoyed the pictures from the trip. The weather was so nice down there. It was not fun to face this cold TN morning, but I know a lot of you have it much worse. I will say it again and again - I do not know how you stand it.
During the trip, we did find out that the doctors came in and told Joan she only has a few months to live. We are deeply saddened by that news, and now we can only hope that it will not be long and drawn out or painful. She does have a port - for chemo right now, although the doctor says she is so weak she really may not be able to stand it, and for pain later on. The dad of one of my teacher friends plays golf with Ray sometimes, and she (my former co-teacher) came in to ask me about it this morning. I didn't get two words out before I felt the tears spilling. Jill and I had a little cry about it when we first found out. We were in Animal Kingdom at the time. I cried a little again that night after I closed the door to my room. I don't think I have had my good long cry about it, though, since the tears came so quickly this morning. Your good thoughts and prayers for Joan, Ray, their daughters, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will be much cherished in the days ahead. Doctors say she might be able to go home Thursday.
I hope we can start on the newest trip report this weekend, if all goes well with the laptop situation. Have a good evening! (Sorry for any mistakes I have made in typing with my eyes half open. I did report card comments like this earlier. There is no telling what I might have said on some of them!
