annnnd....we are proud to announce.....

Duke and Suri are going to have puppies!

We have suspected for some time now, but it is getting to be that time. Paul built a nice cozy whelping box for her the day before he left for France. If my calculations are correct, she should be having puppies somewhere between the tenth and fourteenth of December. The box is set up at the end of the living room. Suri is just too friendly and people-oriented to stay downstairs or in one of the bedrooms, we have no garage, not that we would put her in there anyway:) so....our Christmas is going to be yappy and sweet and wonderful and crazy.

And: Margaret passed her driver's test today! She only took it four times. It has been rough for her....she and Samuel took it together, for the first time, he passed and she didn't. She took it a second time, then a third. She got discouraged. She didn't want to take it again and fail it again. She wanted to cancel it. But she realized that in all these trials, she was learning humility, she was learning to fight against anxiety. As we drove to the test today, she said she wasn't even nervous. And that she was thankful for failing so many times, because she learned so much from it. When she pulled back to the curb and the driving instructor exited the vehicle, I peeked in and she was just beaming! Then she started crying, tears of joy. I was so happy and excited for her, she finally did it. We agreed that if she had just passed the first time it wouldn't have been nearly as joyful. It is the same way with other things in life, we would never choose difficulties, but there is much to learn in them.

btw, she isn't a bad driver. She just made some mistakes...in the first test, the tire hit the curb during her three-point turn. In another test, she stopped pulling out when she saw someone coming down the road, but the instructor told her to stop right as she was stopping, and that is automatic failure. Anyway. She finally passed. Nine down, seven to go.

After she passed, we were tempted to go out to lunch to celebrate, but we didn't. We just got coffees from Tim Horton's, she got a skinny mint chocolate latte, I got a coffee with sugar-free mint chocolate. Yummy, and pretty guilt-free. We did some grocery shopping, a bit of Christmas shopping, then home....

I put away groceries, made a pot of chili, and got the kids out the door to activity club. I am going to start wrapping presents tonight, instead of wasting the whole time on the computer.

Tomorrow, I plan to stay home and buckle down on schooling with Jonathan. He is learning cursive, and how to write better sentences. He has a lot of knowledge in his little head, but needs to write neater.

The washer is humming, the dryer is going, the Christmas lights are all on in the windows, the dogs are sleeping...oh, I do enjoy a quiet evening alone.

Paul is doing okay in France. He said he can understand quite a bit, and speak enough to be basically understood about simple things. He went to a nice restaurant with colleagues last evening, said dinner lasted like four hours.

I miss him. And shh, I am jealous that he is going to Normandy without me. I got myself in too much trouble when he was in Germany that first time by mentioning my jealousy of a co-worker, so I won't even go there, won't mention that he is going with a different female co-worker... I simply won't mention it:) And I hope that whoever reads this realizes that this is just the way I feel about things, not that anything is wrong. Paul and I get far too little time to ourselves, far too little time to do fun things and go on adventures. I love how he is when he is happy about something, or really interested in something. I just don't like missing that, it has nothing to do with thinking he is doing anything wrong. He is a very good and faithful man, very responsible and honest and solid. I totally trust him.

And for not going there, I sure went there.

Anyway. I need to get a few things accomplished. With puppies coming, and only three weeks until Christmas, I need to use my time wisely instead of leaving everything until the last minute:)