18 and counting

Kenneth and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. I don't even remember having an anniversary last year, or celebrating in any way. I remember thinking we could do something fun this year. This is our "Golden Year". Meaning we are celebrating 18 years on the 18th of December. We had planned to go away for the weekend but we talked ourselves out of that. We have only spent the night away from home together on our 10th anniversary. Or when visiting the ER in the wee hours of the night, or when having a baby. But never getting away just the two of us for fun. Now part of the problem is that although the week before Christmas is a beautiful time of year to be married, it is a busy time of year and we usually budget our extra cash on Christmas items for the kids or to paying our property taxes.
This year we celebrated with the whole family! We had our wedding reception at the Hotel Del Coronado. It it so beautifuly decorated for the holidays. But we have never taken the kids to see the hotel or the huge Christmas tree. Did I mention that it was built in the 1880's and has so much beautiful details in the interior woodworking.

We took the kids and my mom along and had fun telling stories of our reception and walking them through the hotel, around the ballroom we had our reception in,  and on to the beach. It was just beautiful and a really fun family night.

Kenneth suprised me the following night with amazing seats to the Nutcracker Ballet. We went there one night on our honeymoon. I was impressed at his thoughfulness and it was fun to get dressed up and spend a night downtown. Anniversary a success!

Leg Three

Santa came to my house early! I got another leg today! Well, not a whole leg. In the past 9 months my lucky fin has shrunk so much that I had to have a third socket made. I keep the old foot and the old hardware. My old foot is looking pretty beat up. I wear my good tennis shoe 95% of the time, even in the house because my gait is adjusted to that pair of shoes. But it still gets gunky. I just take some windex to it and shine it up.
Today I thought it was time to get a new pair of shoes to go with my new foot. It really does make a difference. I wear this socket for a week and then tune it up in any sore spots. So far so good. Just a few spots hurt. My leg has lost all it's shape and is very cylindrical. It is weird to look at. Sometime I will take a picture and post it. It is super weird and kinda gross looking to be honest.

New Addition

We have had the most loyal and loving dog for the past 12 years. His name is Pete. Over the last few months he has blown out his knee and hip and after some tests, we believe he has cancer. We have been keeping him comfortable until we could let him go. I think he is ready and I have been preparing myself to let him go. The problem is that I don't know if I should keep him around through the holidays or not. Well, we started to look for a new puppy over the last couple of weeks and found a great dog at the shelter. She was about 4 months old and we all fell in love with her. Sadly, 4 days later she got that awful puppy virus and was terribly ill. The virus had been going aroundthe shelter and we took a chance on her anyway. We had to put her down. Not easy for me, even though we had only known her a few days. Hard on the kids too but we decided that she would have died in the shelter and at least she had a family to love her even if it was only for a short time.
This last weekend we found some puppies at a different shelter and after meeting with all 8 of the puppies in the liter, we picked one out and brought her home. We did a major bleach down of the outside yard and insde. We threw out any toy or other item that the last puppy may have touched and we cleaned our carpets. So far, we are good. We named her Gretchen.

Gretchen. She is a Black Lab blend

Our amazing dog Pete. He is a shepherd mix