Home, Sweet, Decorated Home

Well, we are finally home.  Nothing could ever feel so good--well one thing could.  That would be if I arrived home without this nasty virus that is going 4 weeks strong.  After two visits to the urgent care and one to an infectious disease specialist, my daily fever, night sweats, chills, headache, and exhaustion have finally been attributed to a mono-like virus called cytomegalovirus, or CMV for short.  And for all you googlers out there, I must feel the need to tell you that yes, I know, it is a *gasp* herpes virus.  My first thought upon reading this was OHMYGOSHWHATDIDTHOSENASTYSHOWERSGIVEME!!?!?!?!?  But, really, you can wipe the fear and disgust off your faces--chicken pox, mono, and shingles are all a part of the same virus group.  PHEW.  And, wipe that smug little smile off your face because 50-85% of people have acquired this virus before the age of 40, but most have no symptoms.  I'm the lucky one who gets to experience these symptoms in full force.  This is probably due to the fact that I run on no sleep and lived in a box for four months.  I like to consider myself an optimist, and one good thing that has come from this whole awful experience is my wonderful husband has taken over baby duty at night--a freezing, teeth chattering, 103 degree mama is no good at night.  Remember, Little likes to wake up anywhere from 3 to a million times a night, but with Sean's help,  we have pretty much weaned him from night nursings (yahoo!), and I get to stay in bed and just listen to his wails while Sean walks and walks and walks with him for hours on end.  I expect Sean to get sick in T minus 5 minutes from his exhaustion.

So, back to coming home.  Home sounded so inviting, so unreal--almost like a distant dream!  I couldn't wait to take a shower without shoes and keep my shampoo in the shower.  Doing laundry in my very own washer and dryer without lugging my supplies to a laundromat was a luxury.  

When it came to Christmas, I had told several people how sad I was that we wouldn't be home enough to really put the effort into decorating our house for Christmas.  So this year, Beckett's first Christmas, our house was going to be Christmas-less.  No tree, no lights, no stockings.  Just barren, cold, boring-ness.  As we prepared to get home, I dreaded unloading four months worth of our possessions into our house, while sick--all the while picturing the floors that I neglected to clean before we left.  As we pulled up to our house, I looked up to see that someone had put lights and garland up on our balcony and railings.  But they didn't stop there, I also saw this:

No porch is complete without Santa!

Michelle put together the arrangement for my boot!  So talented!

I looked at Sean, exclaiming about how sweet Michelle was for decorating outside for us!  No wonder she had asked me about when our HOA allowed decorations to go up.  It all came together now.  I was still clueless about the Christmas wonderland awaiting me inside.  As we opened the door to go inside, the first thing I noticed was that there was a Christmas tree in our living room. As it turns out, one of my best friends from high school, Elizabeth, drove over four hours to meet Michelle and help clean my house from top to bottom and decorate for Christmas. I will let the pictures speak for themselves (kinda):

That is Michelle's Christmas tree from her house!  She refused to let me bring it back to her!  Now that is some selfless Christmas spirit!  There are presents under the tree, and the white box contains ornaments.  They wanted us to enjoy decorating the tree, but not be too stressed, so they left us a small amount to hang!

Elizabeth bought us the stockings.  There are even stockings for Cooper and Baby #2.  Please, don't jump to conclusions--after our nighttime torture device, Baby #2 is a distant dream at the moment.

Who wouldn't want to eat at that gorgeous table?!

So much Christmas spirit! It makes me so happy!  The picture frame in the top right contains a picture of Michelle, Elizabeth, and their puppy dogs, a.k.a. my Christmas elves, as they decorated!

So with tears rolling down my face, I picked up the phone to call Michelle to thank her.  That's when I learned about my other elf friend, Elizabeth, who had driven down.  At this point I realized that home isn't just a place where you can shower without your shoes on.  My home is also a place where I can spend time with some of the best people out there.  There are many of those people that don't live here--but thankfully I was able to see most of those people on our little adventure.  For now, we are going to settle in, turn the fireplace on, light the tree, turn on some Christmas music, and share in family and friend time.  God has truly given us so many blessings--herpes virus or not!

And one last pic from the road....er, parking lot.  Vroom Vroom.  We've got a little trucker on our hands!