What December Looked Like

 A few random photos from the rest of December

Andrew had a heart procedure done at the beginning of the month. He has had irregular heartbeats for years. We had it checked out about ten years ago and his doctor at that time told him, "Yes, you have extra heartbeats, but if they're not causing you symptoms, I wouldn't recommend doing anything." Well, this summer Andrew struggled with some shortness of breath. He had several COVID tests done, but never came back positive. The advice he was given at the ER was to see a cardiologist. And this time the cardiologist felt like it might be time to have a procedure. He had a cardiac ablation done. Since we are in the midst of COVID, I couldn't even go into the hospital with him. It was so lame. I dropped him off EARLY in the morning and then picked him up later that afternoon. Everything went super smooth.

Home and ready to start recovering. Out of Andrew's many surgeries, this one was actually the easiest recovery. Crazy. The puncture wound where they went in through his leg was teeny tiny. And it was sore for a couple of days, but nothing bad. And he never felt anything wrong with his heart. His doctors advised him to take a week off of work. It was a great excuse to chill around the house together. We watched lots of Survivor with Care Bear and Downton Abbey with Whit. Natalie and Glenda brought us dinner that week, which was so nice.

Grandma Sweat had Duck Donuts delivered. Yum!

They were delicious!

I was doing family history and came across this relative.

Good Heck!

What a name!

Last year Mary U from church gave us this really cool Nativity wax-melt thing. Since we didn't open it until Christmas, we didn't use it last year. We LOVED it this year. It was beautiful and made the house smell good.

We got to stop by Chick-fil-A and see Whitney hard at work.

She's a hard working young woman, working 20+ hours most weeks.

We had some beautiful sunny days that first week of December.

Perfect for going on neighborhood walks with Andrew while he recovered.

His co-workers sent him an edible arrangement.

Also delicious!

For one of our YW activities, we put together Christmas

gifts for the Elders serving in our ward.

I tracked down all of their moms on Facebook to 

find out what their favorite treats were. It was so fun.

The Elders were very grateful.

Happy we could brighten their day.

The girls have done so good at cooking dinner every week.

Caroline really looks forward to it, too.

She made us waffles one week.

Christmas cards ready to go!

Yummy tortillas

For FHE one week, we ding-dong-ditched uplifting

notes on Robyn and April's doors.

So fun.

Combined activity in December was a white elephant

gift exchange. Everyone had a good time.

Whitney has been making "pep-sicles" this Christmas.

I think Gigi taught us how to make these ones year and W is

obsessed with peppermint, so they are perfect for her.

Another week C made us Grilled Chicken Hawaiian Teriyaki bowls.

They were scrumptious!

She's a great cook!

Whit and I are excited that the puzzle table is back up!

Some of my stats from Duolingo this year:

I spent over 2800 minutes learning almost 3500 words this year.

I was in the TOP TWO PERCENT of users

for XP from 2020. Wow. You'd think I'd

be fluent in Spanish by now.

Andrew's other health development this month:

He was diagnosed with sleep apnea.

I mentioned to him a few months ago that he sometimes stop breathing in his sleep and he should probably get that checked out. When he met with his cardiologist, they also asked about sleep apnea because heart problems and apnea often occur together. His home sleep test showed that he has moderate sleep apnea. The study showed that he stopped breathing about 20 times PER HOUR. I can't imagine what severe apnea must be like!

So now he gets to sleep with this:

a CPAP machine.

He's had it for about a month now and has had mixed experiences. It was rough in the beginning. It was hard to get the pressure right. He would wake up in the night feeling like he couldn't breathe out because the pressure was too high. And sometimes he wakes up because the mask is uncomfortable. But many nights he is sleeping just fine with it. AND most nights he only stops breathing 3-5 times an hour--way down from 20. We're hoping he'll continue to adjust, feel well-rested, and that it will be good for his heart as well.

Caroline decided she wanted to cut her hair short.

It looks so cute. She's very happy with it.

Andrew and I started going back to Spare Time a few weeks ago, wearing masks and gloves. We are racking up the tickets, but they don't have FireTV sticks in stock anymore. Boo. Those were the perfect item for us to sell on eBay. One of the times we went this month, Andrew looked up the price of this Nerf blaster on eBay and found that they were selling for over $200. What. the. heck? We decided to buy it and try to sell it. Even though we knew shipping would be expensive, we thought it would still be worth it. We tried to sell it locally first through Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. No luck there. But it sold on eBay for $225! Crazy!

Brandon brought his VR set home with him.

It is so fun! All of us love it.

There's a Just-Dance-type game called Beat Sabre that is fun. Caroline likes to try Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator. Whitney likes the flight simulator. And we like to play one called "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", where you have to work together to defuse bombs.

Andrew's mind is BLOWN by the VR set.

I think he might be using some fun money to buy his own.

Too bad I didn't have my telescope a few days earlier.

Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction in the night sky just a few days before Christmas. People were referring to it as the Christmas Star because they were so close together. I got this pic with my camera phone. Ha!

For one of our dates in Dec, we bought poinsettias and 

delivered them to several families from around the stake.

I love spending time in the car, chatting and exploring.

Another puzzle done.

And a third.

These are our super cheese faces at the sugar mill gardens.

The kids are afraid of that giant sloth behind them.

It has human teeth. Hilarious.

B photo bombing a family selfie.

I saw this Ghostbusters car while we were in FL.

Interesting.

This bridge in Jacksonville is fun.

Since we had just gotten back into town from our FL trip,

we had a quiet Near Year's Eve here at home. We played games,

including Telestrations, which is always fun. Everyone stayed up until midnight.

But it was hilarious that we almost missed actual stroke of midnight. Andrew was playing VR, Caroline was doing her own thing. Whit and I were playing Big Boggle. And the clock was wrong in the room where we were. We thought we still had ten minutes. B-train came downstairs and said, "Aren't we doing anything for New Year's?" It was like thirty seconds until midnight! We hurried and grabbed glasses and toasted the new year! Let's hope 2021 is a good one!