Our Year

I'll post my Christmas newsletter first and then add more at the end. I didn't send our newsletter to anyone I know that reads my blog, haha, or anyone local who knows what we've been up to this last year. I wanted to save paper and ink, plus I was sending out 114 photo cards and I was already really late with getting them out. Sorry! It's actually rather boring so you didn't miss much.

December 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Not much has changed in the Williams’ household this year. The kids are growing and continue to bring us much joy. Raymond still works for the same company, but he now has a different position. He enjoys the work that he does and traveled a couple of times for training, once to St. Louis, MO and once to the San Jose, CA area. The kids and I were able to join him on his trip to San Jose and it was nice to get away for a few days and relax and play in the hotel room while Raymond was at his classes.

Starting back in February, right around Nathan’s 2^nd birthday, we noticed some bumps and spots forming in different areas of Nathan’s body. After taking him to the doctor when the pimple-like sores would not go away, we discovered that he had an MRSA staph infection. He was treated with antibiotics and we worked to clean the house as much as we could to remove any lingering traces of the bacteria. Once he finished the antibiotics and a couple of weeks passed, another round of spots, doctor’s visits and antibiotic courses occurred. He never had any other symptoms, there were no fevers or complications or any other signs of infection. This happened several times. At one point, Jonah also developed sores and was treated. The four of us were tested as carriers for the infection, which involved a painful nasal swab, and each test came back negative. Our pediatrician was stumped on what to do. He had not seen a case where the staph infection came back as repeatedly as Nathan’s did. After several months of this, we were referred to a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the UCLA medical clinic. Raymond and I took Nathan to Los Angeles where we met with two doctors who looked at pictures we took of the sores and discussed his records and history. It was determined that we would give Nathan a prophylactic course of antibiotics, giving him one dose every day for 6 months, to see if we could eradicate this infection and prevent a new one from occurring. We praise the Lord when we say that after this course of treatment, Nathan has been off of antibiotics for a while now and has no signs of the MRSA staph infection coming back. We are praying that he will continue to do well and that it will never come back. We are thankful that all of this never seemed to bother him and that he is now perfectly healthy.

We had our very first trip to Disneyland in September which was a lot of fun. Raymond’s parents and my sisters came with us and it was really nice to have them all along with us. We took a lot of pictures and created some precious memories together!

Jonah is 5 and Nathan is 2½. They are delightful little boys who love to play with cars, pretend, and watch movies and play games together. We’ve decided that we will homeschool them, beginning next year when Jonah starts kindergarten.

May we remember what Christmas is all about- that Jesus came to earth to bring us salvation and hope. We hope you’ve had a wonderful year and pray that God will bless you in this coming year! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

With love, Raymond, Sunny, Jonah, and Nathan

So that was the newsletter. Told ya, boring! ;)

A Summed Up 2008:

In February, Nathan turned 2 and developed his first MRSA staph infection. He was diagnosed on the very same day that Raymond had minor surgery on his scalp to remove benign cysts. That was a nightmare. We were told by the doctor's office that Raymond could not be home in case there was bacteria at our house since he had had surgery that day. He ended up staying the night at his sister's house until he was able to get ahold of his surgeon the next day who told us it was fine as long as Raymond tried to avoid contact with Nathan's sores.

In March we were still dealing with new MRSA infections. Raymond and I made our first trip to Las Vegas for a wedding. The ride home was HORRIBLE and we vowed never to go again. We were stuck in traffic for hours, almost ran out of gas, and I really really had to go to the bathroom but there is absolutely nowhere to stop for a very long time. I was in hysterics and ready to cry, just praying that we could make it to a gas station since it would take even longer to get a tow truck to deliver us some gas. The first gas station we finally pulled up to RAN OUT OF GAS so we had to get back in the car and drive a few more miles, the car running on fumes, before we pulled into a station and were able to fill up. The line to the bathrooms at the gas station was so long, because dozens of other travelers were in the very same position as we were. So I made us go to a diner, with a "Restroom for Customers Only" sign on the door, and order coffee and a piece of cake just so I could use their bathroom. The cake was the very last piece on the cake stand and was the grossest stale cake ever! *gag* I didn't eat it. We finally made it home hours after we thought we would. Apparently Sundays are very bad days to drive home from Vegas. You have been warned!

In April we had a few windows in our house replaced. After getting sucked into various friends', family members' and random strangers' blogs and spending a lot of time online reading and loving every minute, I caved and joined the blogging world in May. My mom came to visit and was able to spend Mother's day with us. During her stay, we discovered what we're pretty sure were drugs stashed inside our house. :S

Nathan continued to battle MRSA which finally involved a trip to UCLA to see the specialists. It was a really stressful time. I got my hair highlighted for the first time, which I loved, but it ended up being waaay too much money to keep up.

My sister Danielle came to visit us over the summer. Jonah started preschool in August, and I started a separate private blog, (which I never do anything with!). Both of my sisters came in September and we all, with my in-laws, went to Disneyland! It was the first time for everyone but Raymond and his parents. We also went to the beach and took a lot of pictures of the kids. The three of us girls took a lot of fun sister pictures and celebrated April's pregnancy.

I took the kids the county fair and met up with friends and their kids where I proceeded to whine and complain the whole time. Fairs are not my thing. I accidentally fed my kids moldy muffins and completely freaked out about it. We celebrated a lot of birthdays and took a little vacation. I wrote a silly blog, and blogs about my friends, which I am still working on. I chopped off my hair and celebrated my 6th anniversary. We had a quiet Christmas at home.

What will 2009 have in store for us? I have no idea, but I am excited to see!