
I love the history that some of our ornaments have. While we don't have red jammies, we do have a red pig that my DW makes fun of every year, but it was given to my mother by her grandmother. My mom passed it to us several years back so the kids would enjoy it and then later one of them would get it. Last year when we were decking the tree, DW tried to avoid putting it on, but all 3 kids ganged up on her and it had to be placed on the tree. At that time they were literally fighting over who would get the little pig. I remember laughing about it quite a bit over the next few days, and every time I started, DW would shoot me such a look and hit my arm. Too bad we aren't putting up a tree this year here at home, or we'd probably a repeat of the situation again.
The past week or so DW has been trying to figure out what we will do to deck out her dad's place while we're out there. We want to do something, definitely. She plans on getting a tree out there, and has been on the phone with her bro several times discussing making sure there are lights on hand before we arrive so that we can decorate whatever tree we end up getting. But of course we won't be taking ornaments with us, so she plans to visit the local dollar store to see what kind of things we might be able to get to make the place festive.
And speaking of her dad... for all those of you who have prayed and such over the past couple of months - his latest MRI results came back this week, and the cancer cells have been shrinking! We are very excited about it. The tarceva pills that he has been taking have not only been doing their job of stopping the growth, they have actually been doing even more. She was so happy to get that news a couple of days ago. He's up and around, walking with and without a cane (instead of the walker), and actually drove a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 4 months. Went to McDonald's and the bank. He's doing well and is quite happy. At this point the doctors believe (though no one knows for sure of course), that the original 6-8 months prognosis can be extended to 1-2 years, maybe more. But no one wants to be say anything above that. So we have one more thing to be thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches. DW told him on the phone last night that he should definitely be thankful that he picked the "right time" to have cancer... just 3 years ago this drug didn't exist, and since he has the kind of cancer that chemo doesn't work for... he would have been gone pretty quickly. But not now anyway...