The ABCs - Abundant Blessings of Christmas

Ah.... Christmas has come and gone once again.

But, this year's Christmas will be remembered forever!  It was so very different from past Christmases.

We were amazingly blessed by the gift of a trip to Florida to relax and spend time with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nieces.  I had high hopes of being able to blog every single day and upload all the photos I wanted to, without any internet limitations.  Alas, the $9.99 fee per day per device at the hotel meant that that didn't happen.

So, now I'm sitting at the airport waiting for our flight back to Haiti and taking advantage of the wi-fi here.  

Let's look back a week or so...

We spent Christmas Eve day at Cormier Beach in Haiti with our good friends and neighbors, the Ayars family, including their dad/grandpa, who was visiting.  Danielle had been sick earlier in the month...then Mark...and Naomy caught it, too.  She was still not at all herself on Christmas Eve day.  She fell asleep on Mark's lap in the shade and that's when I knew we needed to try a round of antibiotics.  Did you know that our dear friends, Steph and Jamey Hancock back in Bloomington bless us more than they know by being our on-call, answer-any-question-at-any-time-of-night-or-day nurse and doctor?  

I gave her the first dose of amoxicillin that night and she was already showing improvement on Christmas morning. Whew.

82 degrees and sunny at the beach on Christmas Eve, with a light breeze. Fun was had by all (even Naomy).

Many, many years ago, my mom and dad went on a Marriage Encounter weekend.  Through all of these years and more challenges, blessings, tragedies, and joys than can be counted, their Marriage Encounter group of couples has faithfully met every month.  I remember going to the group's Christmas party each December as a child... Mrs. Patchis' birthday cake for Baby Jesus...singing carols...eating too many cookies.  At some point in their history together, the group began "adopting a family" for Christmas each year.  Can you guess who they "adopted" this year?

Us!

It's hard to describe how it feels to watch your children open gifts that were chosen, purchased, and sent to them by wonderful, caring people who love them from so very far away.  It was a very special morning.  We were all quite overwhelmed by their generosity and love.  

We've just been called to board the plane.... so, I'll have to finish this post later!  Sorry for the interruption...