Merry Christmas 2019

Brain cancer is...

 ...happy for this holiday.

Above you see that we had a wonderful afternoon with LuAnn.

We started the day with our Life Gift Exchange walk at the park.

Then we had a great present exchange and ham dinner and more Life Gift Exchange with LuAnn for the afternoon (above).

We ended a great day with one more Dingle Ball Stroll.

When it comes to favorite holidays, more is more...obviously!

Merry Christmas or Happy Day, Team D!

Bonus Content:  Life Gift Exchange Update

Our non-gift-wrapped gift exchange was more successful than even anticipated.

Darrell and I started exchanging gifts during the first steps of our morning walk and continued for three miles. The first gifts were given long ago: "Thanks for breaking up with your first high school girlfriend.”

Good to know:  If you've been with someone for 40 years (5 dating, 35 married), you have received many gifts. More importantly, what we learned from our gift exchange is that some of the most precious gifts--in the eyes of the receiver--are not even remembered by the giver.  Here are two examples:

Darrell:  "Thank you for the gift of quitting my full time engineering position to earn my master's degree."  (Andi doesn't remember this decision as being a gift, only a necessity for our life's goals.)

Andi:  "Thank you for the gift of the two hours sleep that morning a couple days after we brought Zach home from the hospital."   (Darrell doesn't remember the incident, the fire in the fireplace, or the amazing three-guy tableau I saw when I stumbled out of bed that morning.  I felt just pure thankfulness for a true gift to a new mother.)

Spurred by our success, we continued the Life Gift Exchange with LuAnn.  Here are just a couple of the gifts we exchanged:

LuAnn:  "Thank you for raising my grandchildren to be awesome."  (Andi and Darrell:  "We'll see.")

Andi and Darrell:  "Thank you for doing every single thing your grand kids needed, and doing it according to their frantic time schedules."  (Examples included Granny constructing Star Wars Halloween costumes, sewing a breakaway cape for the Mr. Fullerton competition, and sitting for many days and nights on sports fields.)

If you have a few hours, we'll continue.  But maybe you just want to go say thank you to someone who gave you a Life Gift.  Go ahead.  We'll wait.

Okay, one more Life Gift as Darrell and I clean up tonight.  This one from me:

"Darrell, thank you for having both the interest in stuff that engaged people did way back in the '80's (Register for china!  Tee hee!) and the good design sense to pick a china pattern that still looks fresh.

More importantly, thanks for picking a design where the coffee cup stays put in the saucer, even at zero gravity.

Dang, Darrell.  Why you gotta look so smug?

Thank you, Team D, for the gifts you've brought to our lives.

Our goal is to give to yours.  Merry Christmas and Happy Day.