Day of pleasure and rest 3 days till Christmas

 This was so much fun to sit and bead on this. 

Some day a family heirloom.

click to enlarge

 These are the two beaded tops we got for Dove the other night 12.99 for one the other for a penny.

 For the Christmas table I thought to make these little boxes of sweets.

 I wanted to see if I liked using the while daily plates on the Dinner table. Now the dishes are undone and set aside till Christmas

 I have loved this Roses fabric and so simply used it for the table over the table pad. The napkins were made on my surger. I am so proud of myself. I sat and figured that machine out and was able to do cover stitch and make the napkins out of this sweet dot. These two fabrics have sat beside each other on my shelf for 6 months. Now look at it. It is the perfect table to have for this vibrant year. The edge of the fish bowl was beaded with crystal drops. Inside the bowl is cut acrylic beads that reflect.

 We took off mid day and took the family out to What a Burger, Steve's favorite.

Then we were off to a far away 5 star resort called the Marriott, to see the giant ginger bread house. This thing was 20 foot long and over 300 pounds of ginger bread let alone all of the beautiful candy.

 It is modeled after the movie 'Willy and the Chocolate factory.

That is a chocolate waterfall in the center below.

 The log cabin looking house had saltine crackers for a roof.

 This is all candy

 We walked the grounds and had some fun adventures.

Oh the flowers were so beautiful!

 Something is going on with Dash. He visited a friend and came home in a strange way. Rather distant. Pray for him. Steve and he had a movie time (war stuff) and Dove and I watched a comedy set for teens.

We all had some time, now the kids are with each other playing on the WII (a game station on the TV)

 This place had gardens that so refreshed my soul.

 There is a little cotton tail rabbit in the image center

any image will enlarge if you click on it.

 There were a few of these trees made out of geraniums. Oh it was so colorful there. Dove is so pretty in her new top. She looked so grown up. She is using one of my necklaces. It was neat to see her so confident.

Then we were off to the next resort. The Phoenician, This is the area of the great ball rooms where some 15 years ago Steve was given an award by the company that we worked for 25 years before we were laid off 6 (?) years ago. 

 They also had a huge ginger bread house but somehow we did not get the image of it.

Look here at image of ginger house

 Except for the lunch and a bit of fuel cost it was all free

Oh my this has just been such a healing time for my little family. 

We were all so worn around out by the beginning of the holiday break that everyone was a bit irritable. Now it is nice. Everyone has the shoulders down so to speak and we are just enjoying each other.

Now for the best news of all

My Doctor called with the lab results while I was out and wanted me to call him right back.

I did so and the nurse spoke with me. It is regarding the infusions and the levels of the IGg imune functions. 

When we began 6 months ago one of the numbers was 24, three months ago 

up to 700's. 

This Saturday BEFORE infusion the test results  

1000  !

This is real good news. I am holding counts during three month intervals. I'll find out more about what this will mean to us on the 30th. This last infusion we are speaking about having to have a port surgically inserted into my collar bone area. My veins are not letting the catheter enter. Saturday left my hand in a black mess of bruise. Now to get this good news! We are anticipating what is in store with more hope and less overwhelm. I know to many this is not a big deal to have CVIG and to get the Inter venous Gamma treatments. For us it has been hard. The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the culprit that is making the vein shut off every iv start.

Nothing we can control, not some mind over matter thing. It is a literal physical response.

Oh if this could just mean and end to it, or even fewer and farther between infusions, that would be so cool! Oh if it might mean no port inserted. A port is a left in vein device that the IV just goes right into.

rejoice with me 

my God 

is so 

AWESOME!