Our friends Tracy and Cole Wadley came over for a visit today and brought their brand new puppy to meet us, named Mia.   She was born on September 7, 2010 and they just got her 1 week ago.   She is so cute and fluffy!  Not sure how to spell her mixed breed but she is part bishon and shitzu, I think that 's right.   Anyway, she was a little skittish at first and Rocky was just trying to figure out what this furball was doing in our house.  She tolerated him sniffing her face and then when she was done with that, she put her paw up and curled her lip at him....saying, "enough with that big nose of yours, move away now"!  We all laughed so hard!   Nice to meet you Mia!  Thanks Tracy and Cole for bringing her over today!

I think the reason Jeff didn't want to go to the doctor today was because he didn't want to spoil is his special day!  He turned 29 again today and he just wanted to relax and that didn't mean in the waiting room of  urgent care.  Anyway, he had a pretty relaxing day, watching football and having a great steak dinner hosted by our great friends, the Ford's.   They gave him a pretty awesome present this year.  In honor of our power going out Friday night at 11:30 pm until 1 pm on Saturday, David and Barbi's Dad, Paul  (with the sleuthing help of me and the kids), hardwired our house so that the next time the power goes out, we just have to do a few simple steps and then turn on our generator, instead of having to run extension cords everywhere and tripping over them just to dry our hair...okay, my hair, I do admit.  Thank you so much!  Saves us a lot of stress for the next time.  Now, we probably won't lose power now for 2 years again, but we're very ready if we do.   Jeff also got some nice presents from us and we all enjoyed his pumpkin pie instead of the traditional birthday cake.  Happy Birthday Jeff!  We love you!

Well, unfortunately, there is nothing new to report.   Jeff didn't want to go to the doctor like I wanted him to so we just iced and elevated and did ibuprofen.  He could barely walk this morning, iced and rested most of day, and I do have to admit did pretty well this afternoon and evening.  He wouldn't let me really look at it and definitely wouldn't let me take another picture so....sorry, we don't have anything to report.  He says it's better, I say it's not.  We're not sure what he did but he did something.  If anything changes, we'll let you know.

Jeff and Zach were playing basketball at the gym tonight and as Jeff was coming down from a 360 degree dunk, he landed  wrong and his ankle gave way.   Yikes!  This is even after having ice on it for 20 minutes.  And,  Advil and elevation are already in the works.    Hmmmm, I'm thinking that urgent care may be in our plans for the morning.....we'll keep you posted.

The first half of girl scouts is over for this year and the leader celebrated all the girls accomplishments with all the badges they earned so far.  Kylie earned 12 patches/badges so far with our summer activities and all the fun we've had at troop meetings and our fall camping trip.  Way to go Kylie!

On basketball game days, Zach has to dress up for school.  He has to wear a button down shirt and docker style pants, no shorts or jeans or sweatshirts, which is his usual attire.    Here he is in his dress clothes and in his new sweatshirt and sweatpants.   I haven't taken a picture yet with his basketball uniform on but I will next game.  Doesn't he look handsome?

The kids worked for several days on their gingerbread houses.  There was a lot of frosting and a lot of candy involved....let's just say they licked off a lot from their fingers and sampled the candy as they were putting it on their houses.  They did a wonderful and creative job!  And, they had fun in the process! 

Kylie and Sydney are in the school choir and they sang at Cocoa with Santa night at the school.   The line was too long to visit with Santa so we decided to just take the girls' picture while they were waiting for the concert to start.  The whole choir did a great job!

 Our family participated in the Christmas Rush  (a 5K run in downtown Kent)  this year with our friends Kelly and Sydney Hawley and Kelly's parents.   Jeff and Zach ran together and Kylie and I ran/walked with our friends.  Okay, Kylie ran the entire time and I ran/walked with our friends.   The boys ran a great time and were there at the finish line to cheer us girls on we completed our race.   It was super cold but it didn't rain until we were rounding the last corner to the finish line!  We completely lucked out!   It was a great time!

12/4/10  Kylie went to a Christmas Bazaar with her friend Sydney yesterday morning and she found a Christmas jingle bell collar for Rocky!   It fits perfectly and he wore it all day long.   He wondered at first what we were doing to him, but after a while, he forgot all about it.  The bells were great because then we knew where he was in the house.  We made sure to take it off when we went to bed though as we didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night listening to him shaking.  Pretty cute!