My first Christmas!

by, Renee

Jesus' birthday is coming up, that's what mommy says! We celebrated Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's here in Louisiana yesterday and I got presents. Mommy will have to explain to me why I get presents when it is Jesus' birthday, but I'll take 'em!!!!!Down south, it is a tradition to shoot off fire works for Christmas and I got to experience it. I jumped once, but Mommy had me so bundled up that I fell asleep through most of them. The lights were pretty as far as I can remember! We had fun at Grandma Sandra and Grandpa Hoa's house! I got to play with all of my aunts and uncles and cousins.

My new cousin Trae'lyn

My next Christmas adventure is flying in an airplane to Minnesota. Mommy has told me lots of stories about living up there. She says it is really cold, but it can't be that bad. knowing her, she will have me so bundled up I might be able to see!!!!! Well I can't wait to see and meet everyone up north!

2 DAYS

My car is home!

This is what our house looks like after a hard rain!!!!! Is it a house boat? Maybe we need pontoons!!!!!

Tuesday Dec. 8th at 12:30 am I woke up, because I knew that something was wrong. I checked on my baby girl and my husband, who falls asleep in his chair every night before coming to bed, then I checked outside. See it had been raining since Sunday night and when we get a lot of rain our property floods, and I don't mean SOME water in the yard, 2 feet of water in our yard our house looks like a house boat in the middle of a pond! Anyway, I looked out the back door and the water was up to the 2nd step and I knew that my car had water in it all ready.

After waking my husband up, I went out and tried to catch things before they started to float away. My husband's rubber boots had all ready disappeared, but mine were floating by the house. The water was about 2 inches from my knees, past the bottom of my car doors and almost to the step sides of the company truck. We decided to get our daughter out of there and went across the road to the neighbors house, which had a little standing water in the yard. They welcomed us in with open arms and my husband started working on getting the car out of the water.

Luckily it started fine, but there was about 8 inches of water INSIDE the car. Soaked in the seats and carpet and damaged a module for the electric system that was located under the carpet. Thankfully that was all that happened. The house is fine and we may have lost a few things that were under the water in our shed, but we have our family and our belongings in the house!!!! Just got to remember that it could always be worse!!!!!

If anyone knows how to go about lifting a house and property, could you please give us an idea on where to start?

Happy Holidays!

The Holidays

So many new things and this year will be the most fun, because it is all new for our little girl Renee. She is 5 months old tomorrow and we celebrated her first Thanksgiving with her Grandparents here in Louisiana and other relatives, and we will be heading to Northern Minnesota for Christmas.

Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays, because of the great food. Since I've been with my husband, I have spent Thanksgiving with his family and it is a different type of food down here. To tell you the truth, I LOVE IT. I eat raw and grilled oysters, stuffed pork chops, rice (instead of potatoes) and gravy, and many other foods. Floyd's daddy gets the best liquor out and we celebrate all of the things we are thankful for!!!! Renee didn't get to taste the foods this year, but she definitely celebrated with us, napped with us and laughed with us!!!!!

One thing I have wanted to do since she was born was take a picture of her and her Great Grandpa. He was 99 on July 2nd and Renee was born. He is the cutest little Vietnamese man and he knows "Hi, and thank you" in English. He also knows that I will always give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Happy Holidays to all and we are so looking forward to coming up north for Christmas!