Counting down to Christmas.... and other things

Jonas and Maddie have been taking turns asking me when Christmas is, and it's so nice to tell them today, only one more week! It's hard to believe it's only a week away. I need to correct something I wrote in my previous post. Josh got picked as an alternate in the program, the 5th alternate. 10 were picked, and then there were 8 others I guess that were picked as alternates, but not sure. I know there were 18. Anyway, Josh being picked as an alternate I guess I misunderstood doesn't mean he necessarily won't be picked, it's just who the Navy chose as their top choices, and then the Olmstead board will be the one's who really select. So if they decide to interview Josh it will be sometime in mid-January somewhere in Washington D.C. so we should hopefully find out by the end of next week if he will be interviewed, and if so he might be returning home a few weeks earlier, which means I might unfortunately not be going over there to meet him as I'd hoped. We'll see what happens. I am just posting this in hopes that everyone out there will have us in your prayers! Think positive thoughts for us. It would be very exciting for us if he was accepted in the Olmstead program, it would mean our whole family living abroad for 2 years in Russia, and Josh going to graduate school there! It would really be exciting, but I'm not going to get my hopes up as he's just an alternate to be picked. Yesterday I got to play photographer for my friend Jenn and her family. They needed family pictures, so we went and took some, and I thought they turned out pretty good. (as you can see above!)Tonight the kids and I will be taking a drive to see the Christmas lights at the Botanical Garden, it should be fun!