Thanksgiving and so much to be thankful for

I am not that good at this blog and editing...so the labels are not by the photos as they should be...the first one is of our son Alex who had to have part of the $ dance at Eric and Chelsea's wedding, I did not get a picture of the end "dip" but it was fabulous! Good job Alex.

The second is Eric and Chelsea with our grand-children Drew and Gabbie

The third is of our grand-daughters (L) Natalie and (R) Ava. What a perfect picture!

The fourth is of all of us "girls". I was so thankful that Beth was available for an early morning visit to our house to do hair for everyone! This is the completed job! Thank you Beth!!

The fifth is of Eric and Alex. They came for a early morning breakfast the day of Eric's wedding. Eric was practising his first kiss of the new Mrs. Williams...Alex was not that excited about him being the practise target.

We seem to have been in a whirlwind lately. Claude and I made the decision to home educate the girls that are in Jr. high and High School. It was hard to understand how a child can be an A student but not be able to read close to that grade level, or how can a child be considered to be put in drivers Ed when they cannot read a sign?, and when a child asks to be moved out of an environment and you speak to them to ask more questions to understand why and to see why it became clear it was time to act on that little push/idea we had been having for the last 2 years. So 4 girls start home education this coming Monday! We are very blessed to have a great team, both Cindy and Crystal will be our educators and we will be involved as well.
Our son Eric married Chelsea and joined his family with hers. We now have another grand-daughter named Gabbie and who is so sweet!. The day was perfect for all and was a wonderful wedding.

Judy had been scheduled for a Halo traction starting in Oct but another child was in need of the Dr much more than Judy and she was bumped out of the line-up. We met with Dr. Leinke the Wed before Thanksgiving and she is now scheduled for surgery Dec. 6th and has been blessed to be found flexible enough to skip the month in Halo traction. We are all glad of this, it would have meant long distance parenting for that whole month as she would have been in the hospital in St. Louis all of that time. Now she is expected to be in the hospital about 5-7 days and then home for recovery. The surgery is a huge surgery, correcting a 107 and a 106 degree curvature in the upper and the lower back. Please hold this child in your prayers for a easy recovery and quick healing.

We have gotten our finger prints done-yes again-and are now waiting for the next document to come so we can send our dossier to China for our next daughter. We have chose the English name of Kim and yet are prepared for the fact that when we get to China she may already have an English name picked out.

Claude and Andrew, Kris and a friend of ours went to Lake Weiss a few weeks ago to enjoy some days of fishing. They were all successful catching fish and having a good time. It was deer season already and Alex and I this year were joined with my grandson Drew age 10. He was so fortunate to be out and see a 8 point buck and get to bag his first deer! Of course Alex had to have him mark his forehead of the first deer a tradition he has carried on from his Uncle Andy, my brother.

As we are closing in on Christmas I hope that everyone is well, and that we are home for St. Louis with our Judy healing well. We are grateful for our family and friends that will help Claude with the girls here at home while I am with Judy at the Children's Hospital in St. Louis. Thank you for the prayers for our family.