Thursday, January 22, 2015

Be Still My Heart

Last night Susanne had an odd sound in her voice when she asked me to come downstairs for a call. Our good friend Becky was calling to say that our amazing friend David had suffered a heart attack.

It has been an emotional 24 hours. Dave and I met on our first day of Peace Corps a long time ago and have a special bond. He is a single gay dad with two beautiful children--twins just 2 years old.

He is now conscious and speaking,  and we are all praying for his complete recovery.

I would say "be still my heart" but as David,  an amazing teacher would say, "rephrase!"

Here is a pic of him with his kids celebrating their first birthday.  And here is a link to a short and very fun slide show from his big Five Oh this summer.

Prayers for his full recovery! -Monica

UPDATE: 1/23/15 - He is improving and hopefully will move out of the ICU tomorrow! Words cannot express how happy I am!!!!!


Monday, January 05, 2015

Happy 2015! Oh Yeah!

Danny enjoying some New Year's Disco Madness!
I can hardly believe that it is 2015. We are chugging along here. Benji is finally (cross all fingers and toes) healthy again. He did end up with an infection in a tooth that then needed to be pulled on the last day of the year--just icing on the cake in terms of his overall health the past two months. So far in 2015, he's healthy as can be though, and let's just hope it stays that way!

We had a fun evening on New Year's with our friends Rachel and Jeff and even pulled out our cool "disco ball" bulb that spins and makes funky colors everywhere and danced to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. We did the same thing with them last year and I like to think that we have a new tradition! Both families have two little boys and they definitely enjoyed playing together. In case you didn't know, other kid's toys are basically SHINY NEW TOYS, so again, it was fun.

Taking a little break with Mommy.
We had a good Christmas too. This pic was taken at the Willard Hotel at the very start of the holiday season when we spent the day after Thanksgiving with one of my former students, Amelia, and her family when they came to DC. First we went to see A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater which was great fun and then strolled around town before dinner. We landed here at The Willard Hotel and then later went to dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill. A wonderful way to start the Christmas season!

At the Willard Hotel. One of us is not happy. ;-)
One of Susanne's gifts this year was tickets for all of us, including her mom, to go and see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the Kennedy Center. It was a wonderful performance. We all know the songs as we've watched the DVD many times and, well, it was a pleasure to see. We've got to do stuff like that more often.

Susanne on the right with her mom and the boys right before we saw the show.


And for the final event of our holiday season, we hosted our favorite "Peace Corps buddies" for our annual White Elephant Party. Look what Benji got. Rut Roh!

Life sized Candy Cane. Stop the madness!
That's it for now. Happy New Year everyone. Onward and upward!!! -Monica