Day 348

1. Huang's US Culture bingo sheet from a class at Intel. Huang is a fellow student of Tyler's at PSU. He's from Vietnam and is here on an Intel scholarship. This was the third weekend we've had him over and it was fun as usual. 

2. What else? Jacob had a post surgery appointment up at the hospital. 

Huang and I cooked a Vietnamese style dinner. Yum!

Day 347

1., 2. Rebekah's lovely Christmas decorations. I dropped in for an impromptu visit, which was wonderful, while Mom had to do pre-surgery things at the hospital.

3. What else? A pre-surgery appointment with the surgeon, and then Mums and I went Christmas shopping. We now have to hurry up and cram all the shopping in so it's done by the surgery.

Day 346

1. Finally making some progress on re-caning my chair. 

2. It's Tyler's birthday! I came up and "kidnapped" him from work and we went to coffee at Singer Hill.

3. Then it was off to the grocery stores to gather ingredients for Black Forest Cake. Then I rushed home and attempted to make it, bake it and assemble it so we could eat it before midnight.

4. Juli came over for dinner and to help celebrate. And then left her keys in the car (she was rather distracted , see following point) so her parents were forced to drive down and join us for dessert.

5. A sad day after hearing about the shooting at Clackamas mall. Juli almost worked at the mall today, but Scott ended up going to the ER (nothing serious) so she found a sub and spent the day with him. But we had friends from church there, and boy, it sounded scary.

6. An exciting day after finding out that Mom is finally, finally, finally going to have some neck surgery. We've been waiting over 3 years for this news. Praise the LORD.

Day 344

1. We decorated the Christmas tree! Jacob mostly just watched...

2. Scott supervises from the couch.

3. Candles on the tree. My grandmother always put candles on her tree, so one year I got some for Christmas as I love the tradition. :)

4. What else? We watched The Christmas Story and Dad made fudge. It's beginning to feel like Christmas!

Day 343

1. Andrew, Daniel and I brought Chinese takeout for dinner to the hospital and then stayed to watch the Dark Knight Rises. Things were up in the air as to whether Jacob was going to come up today, but it was finally decided he needed another night. Tyler hung out in the morning, and Scott hung out in the afternoon but left before we got there. Poor Mom was so exhausted from the past two days that she had to sleep all day (and ended up sleeping most of Sunday too) and couldn't come. Which made her extremely sad. 

Day 342

1. Tonka helping me move the sheep's electric fencing.

2. At the hospital to visit Jacob... we loved how each floor had an animal assigned to it.

3. Jacob and his brave smile. And his menagerie of stuffed animals.

4. Jacob and I hung out while others ran errands/did other stuff. 

5. Jacob was on the squirrel floor.

6. I loved the horse floor!

7. The Brave Bot wall. Jacob got his very own bravery bot.

Day 341

1.-4. I hosted a holiday party and invited some gals over. I spent the day baking (and some the day before) and then we all enjoyed visiting and trying on jewelry thanks to my lovely friend, who has become a  Stella & Dot representative!

5. Jacob's surgery!!! The surgery ended up being scheduled the same day. Everything went really well. I felt badly though as Jacob was quite awake in the evening; the doctor assured us that Jacob would be drowsy and sleepy and not up for visitors. If we had known that he would have been so "lively" I would have canceled the party so we could be with him. Oops. So, we facetimed instead.

Day 340

We decorated for Christmas, and Jacob and Daniel both took pictures 

of the seasonal decorations and the not so seasonal.

Day 339

1.-3. Beautiful tapestries from Turkey.

4. A beautiful ivory carving of a horse.

5. Jeanne, Mom, Me, Christine & Jana 

Also, today was our annual bible study holiday outing. We went to the Hallie Ford Museum in Salem, Gerry Frank's Konditerei, the Maze consignment store, and the craft store. It's so lovely having such a diverse group of friends! You would never guess it, but our age range spans almost 40 years. It's fun being the youngest sometimes. :)

Day 338

We had quite an adventure today. Here's Mom's Facebook status:

"Had a surprise today. Took Jacob to the neurosurgeon. He needs two spinal surgeries. One for a "tethered cord" and the other for a large cyst lying alongside the spinal cord. He is having both surgeries Thursday, and they should total about 6 hours. Then 2 nights at Emmanuel, and 2 weeks of rest at home and he should be better than new.

A lady at Emmanuel gave us an awesome 45 minute tour o

f the different rooms of the hospital that he will see, and what he can expect. It was "costume day" at the hospital which happens one day a month. Every child is given a costume and the ones that can walk have a parade. We were leaving the floor and saw the costume lady. She let Jacob pick out a costume to keep. He chose Spiderman. He also received a doll, teddy bear and a bag of goodies."