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We had a Christmas like no other this year.

First we opened gifts.

And shortly thereafter is when the Plague overcame Chad. He spent a majority of Christmas on the bathroom floor.

No picture of that. That would have been mean.

So here’s a random shot of Ping on top of some lovely Christmas loot.

Our socks made by Aunt Ramona (mine’s blue).

And a platter of various Christmas cookies. It’s a good thing Chad sampled a bunch before Christmas.

On the 26th I had to leave Chad in Palmyra to be taken care of by his Mom & Dad so I could return to Morgantown and go to work the next day. That was the plan anyway. I managed to get to Morgantown all right, but by morning the Plague struck me down.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We finally had the house in decent shape, so we had Mamaw, Aunt Betts and Dad up for dinner. (Not that Dad has never witnessed our house in complete shambles, but I hated for Aunt Betts to come up when we had our bathroom and foyer both in our dining room.)

Before the family headed home I figured we’d take a few photos. Easy peasey. The Canon S90 has a 3-shot timer function. So we all lined up, I set the timer and took my place. Good thing someone suggested I check to make sure the photos were ok.

As you can see, Dad managed to hide behind Mamaw not just once…

Or twice…

But three times.

Fortunately digital media is cheap….so we took three more shots.

A heartfelt thanks to all who have served and continue to serve our country.

My Pap-Pap, pictured below in Italy

My Gramps, pictured below

And my Dad, pictured below in Korea

We had a little emergency here last night. Ping was helping out with fixing the Jeep’s emergency brake when he hurt his back. I know, I know. He is awfully little to be handling things like emergency brake repairs, but he was seriously helpful since he could see in the Star Chamber or whatever the hell its called (Ed: it’s called the Star Adjuster) since my noggin is a bit too large to see what’s what.

Anyway, after adjusting the brake and taking Edmund the Little Black Jeep out for a spin to confirm that we’d done everything ok and that the brakes still worked, Ping mentioned his back was bothering him a little bit. So off we went to have him looked at. Upon examination it became clear that he was going to need surgery immediatley.

He was rushed into pre-op.

And as you may imagine I was a complete disaster. Not because this is the first time Ping has had to have surgery. He’s an old hat at having gone under the sewing needle. But because this was the first time Ping needed surgery and I didn’t have Mom, Dad or Mamaw around. Ping and I were on our own.

The surgeon did a good job sewing up his wound and everything checked out ok. It took a steady hand, but I think the scarring will be minimal this time around. Which is good. Especially since we have a summer of fun in the sun ahead of us now that the Jeep’s e-brake is good to go.

Ping was only in recovery for a short period of time. He’s got no problem with the anesthesia and is a very good patient.

As you can see in this photo, he only has a small bandage which the surgeon said could come off within 24 hours.

So no more working on the Jeep or doing any work on the floor renovation for at least a week. The latter being pretty much done anyway, but Ping is such a perfectionist. I caught him trying to sneak a peak of the floor last night, some sandpaper in his flipper. Sheesh.