Dog Bed

Earlier this month our Dallas Dog and Disc club had our annual Christmas Party. The gifts are, appropriately enough, for the dogs. This year we scored a very nice dog bed. When we got home we set the bed down and guess who immediately claimed it?

That's right, we know who the real master of this house is!

JOJO SLEEPING POSITION #3

A Boy and his Guitar

Jaden's Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt gave him an electric guitar (sized down for kids) for Christmas. This afternoon after our hike, Jaden sat on the floor and strummed on it for about an hour! Not the correct way of course, but he thought he was jammin' out! It was funny because we were in the kitchen making dinner and we heard him start singing "we will, we will, rock you!". Freddie Mercury would have been proud. Here is a little clip of his guitar playing. Can you guess who's tail that is at the end?

Hiking on Parkside Property

Today Jeremy, Jaden, the dogs and I went hiking on our property in Pilot Point. Jennifer met us there with her two dogs. We walked the perimeter and took our cutters to trim branches and thorny vines along the path. It's pretty overgrown again among the trees, but the open field areas looked nice. Jaden was excited to wear his brand new Camelbak. It can hold 35 ounces of water. He thought it was so cool because it looked like daddy's hydration pack. Here is a pic of Jeremy and Jaden with their Camelbaks and also of the dogs enjoying the hike.

We hope everyone has a very safe and happy new year!

Christmas in Big Vic

Dec 23-26:

We all went to Victoria this year for Christmas - Jaden, Jeremy, myself and the two dogs, Sprite & Lucky. It was an opportunity to see my brother again since I last saw him in the hospital in Houston. He is now living with my parents and they take him to therapy Monday through Friday. He is walking and can move his right arm up and down. He can not move his fingers in his right hand yet and he still has a long way to go with his speech. He can understand just about everything you tell him, he's just having a very hard time taking what he's thinking in his head and getting that point across because he can't say the words and he can't write the words. There is a connection missing. But we all feel that with a lot of time and patience he will be able to strengthen this connection and hopefully improve it.

The weather was beautiful in Victoria! Temps were in the high 60's, low 70's and the days were sunny. We swung by downtown Victoria and Jaden ran around the gazebo in the center of downtown (don't all small towns have a gazebo in the center of downtown?). Here is a picture my niece, Tifany, took of Jaden and I in the gazebo.

ROCKBAND!!!

Jeremy, Jaden and I went to George and Diana's house to play Rockband on the XBOX 360. This is a video game in which you play guitar, drums and sing. If your band is good and hits the right notes at the right time you get to play the whole song and get a rating afterwards. If your band is not any good, you will get boo'd off the stage! You can pick the way your "rock" person looks, the name of your band, etc. It's like karaoke but with the instruments and talk about FUN! We "jammed" all night. Even Jaden got to play the drums!

If you can get past my very annoying laugh (yes, I had a few glasses of wine) this is a cool video clip of all of us playing Rockband. George's mom, Aspa, is visiting from Greece and she gets Diana to dance for the song. Jeremy is singing and tapping on the microphone (which is equivalent to playing the tamborine).

Update on Mark

Mark was moved to Victoria about 2 weeks ago! He is now in a rehabilitation center. It took a few days to settle in and there was not a lot or progress initially, but once they took that darn catheter out, he started to progress by leaps and bounds! He was doing so well they took the IV out of him too. So, with no wires attached to him anymore, he focused on his therapy. I am very happy to say that he can walk now! Amazing. I haven't seen it yet, but I talk to mom and dad and Lisa daily. Mark was doing really good for days, but there is still the depression to deal with and also the speech which usually takes the longest to come back. Sometimes he has sad days or angry days when he doesn't want to do therapy or have anyone in his room. I pray that he finds the strength within him to not give up and keep trying to do the best he can in therapy as its the only way he'll be able to get around by himself in his own home.

Christmas Parade

Dec 1 -

We went to the Neiman Marcus Christmas Parade in downtown Dallas. They have it the first Saturday in December every year. My friend, Karin, got me started going as a family tradition. This was our second year to go. I don't think Jaden remembers last year, but he did enjoy it this year. I think his favorite part was seeing Spiderman! He did get a little ancy there towards the end where he wasn't paying much attention to the parade. But it was a fun day. Not too warm, not too cold.

Here is the opening dance routine to the parade. Happy holidays!