Take a deeeeep breath...

The girls spent the morning turning the house into a war zone and listening to each other's hearts. Notice their makeshift exam table, a crumpled laundry basket and a pillow. They took turns being patient and nurse, and telling each other, "Okay, take a deeeeep breath." Then whoever was the "patient" would crack up the instant the stethoscope touched her and say, "My turn!" It was adorable.

Bedtime prayers

Tonight when we were saying bedtime prayers, Natalie's prayer was so adorable and I had to share it before I forget. She said,

"Jesus, please bless my whole family, and bless the guppy, and my mommy and daddy, and my grammy cuz shes my grammy, and pappap bc he's pappap, and my grandmother is my grandmother , and granddaddy is granddaddy, and grammy, and grand pap, and …I don’t have anymore grandparents, that all. The end. I mean, amen."

Snuggle Bunnies....

....watching the Grinch in our jammies!!

The Florida Coast

We left the girls with their grandparents and spent the weekend on the boat off the coast of Shalimar, Florida. What an amazing trip. There is nothing like the Florida Gulf Coast - the water is crystal clear and you can see the bottom even when it's 30 feet deep. We didn't catch a lot (it's December) but we saw a ton of fish in the water and a shark in the bay. We reeled in a couple of remoras; they look like aliens, with a giant sucker thing for a forehead, and Jesse caught an eel, that was crazy. By far the most bizarre thing we caught was something that looked like a toad with wings and three toes, called a Sea Robin. I'm not kidding, we caught several of these and they were weird! Pictures above are from the internet, guy holding a remora, a Sea Robin. The ocean was a dead calm all weekend, which was amazing. We went about 22 miles out and it was so beautiful, not seeing any land and the water being so smooth, it was like a giant bedspread.

By far the coolest part of the weekend were the porpoises that swam with the boat for about half an hour on Saturday. They were everywhere all weekend, but for some reason this group of three took an interest in us and got right under the nose of the boat and just swam along, coming up to snort water at us and leap out of the water every few seconds. We could reach down and grab their dorsal fins (which always made them swim away for a second) but we couldn't resist. We kept up a dialogue for them the whole time ("Look kids! Humans!") We just loved having them right there, in water so clear you could count their spots. What a memory.

I'm sorry I don't have pictures to post but I wasn't interested in watching my digi cam float slowly to the bottom of that incredibly clear emerald green water.

Charlie's Final Resting Place

I finally got hold of myself enough to go back out there. He's in such a great spot. We miss him so much.

Unexpected Departure

On Monday, December 4th, we took Charlie to the vet because he was lethargic and not eating. The vet said his bladder was the size of a football and he needed immediate surgery. Charlie had cancer all around and inside his bladder. The vet said he didn't know how he was still going. Jesse made the (heartwrenching) decision to put him down. He never woke up from the surgery. Jesse buried him out behind the house, in a beautiful spot, and covered his grave with a huge stone from nearby.

We have had Charlie since right after we got married (6 years.) He was a special dog. We really miss him and it has been a hard couple of days.