The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Are Oft to Go Awry

And that's just what happened, the plans went awry. The plan was for Christmas to be at our house this year so that Hana Grace could wake up Christmas morning and open presents in her own home. Well, she still opened presents in her home, it was just the eve of Christmas Eve when it took place. Yesterday, on Christmas Eve, we made a pit stop at Aunt Victoria's so she could open her presents on our way to the hospital. Aunt Victoria is sick right now so she couldn't make it to the lake with us to visit Dian in the hospital. What happened to Dian? Where do I even begin? She got very, very sick. She thought she had a kidney infection, but we quickly learned it was much worse. Remember her hernia she had surgery on earlier in the year? Well, apparently they used some sort of mesh thing fix the problem and there was a major infection concerning that mesh thing. And when I say major, I mean major. I won't go into the whole story or give many details, but I will say that she lost a lot of blood and was taken to the ER and they had to perform surgery on her the same day. After surgery, all is better but it's going to be a long, slow healing process.

So, as I said, Christmas Eve began with a quick visit with sick Aunt Victoria and ended at the hospital with Dian. Hana Grace was such a good girl at the hospital. Really, I don't know many one-year-olds that would have behaved as well as she did. And she wasn't even afraid of Dian with all the tubes and machines hooked up to her. She was very curious but she still gave Dian lots of love and kisses. We even brought Christmas to Dian yesterday and opened our presents in her hospital room, which ended up being more emotional than I think we had anticipated. Hana did receive lots of wonderful presents this year which included clothes, books and toys (even a really cool piano from her Great Aunt Dian, Nana and Brad which she played in the hospital). What lesson did we learn this year? Christmas is not all about what you give or receive. More importantly it's about family and being able to be together. We were so fortunate to see Josh and Angela for the holiday this year and I am so very happy Josh was able to make it to the hospital with us to see Dian. This Christmas, I think, just might turn out to be the best Christmas of all because we have so much to be thankful for. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family and to have Dian with us today. And speaking of blessings, I heard a rumor that my Uncle Jeff (the one who recently suffered a heart attack) might be flying down really soon to see Dian and I know that will mean a lot to Dian, my Mom and to Nana, as well as the rest of the family.

We woke up this morning, Christmas morning, at my Mom and Dad's house. There are no presents here because we already opened them last weekend at my house. Do we care? Not really because we're all together. If Christmas would have been at our house this morning we wouldn't have got to see my Dad because he has to work today. That's why we celebrated Christmas with him last weekend. So today we'll enjoy each other now and head to the hospital later per Dian's request. "Please don't come too early," she said. LOL I know the main thing she needs in order to heal right now is rest. But we won't stay away completely because we love her too much! Family, that's what this Christmas is all about. Is God teaching us a lesson? Every single day!