"GUNNER" made his appearance Christmas morning! I hope to have the video of it soon. It was too cute. The Christmas surprise did come with some drama. I mean, how could it not in the Gilbert house, right?
So here's the story...
On Christmas Eve Eve (Tuesday), Matt was to go to West Monroe to get the dog right after work. So on Monday night, I asked him to go get the dog crate out of the storage building. He went to the Greenhouse (where all of the Santa stuff is locked up with a padlock....I know my son, he's too much like his momma.) first and couldn't find it. He came in to ask me and I told him it was in the storage building. Tuesday during the day Mason's little friends from next door , two precious little girls, came over to play. I saw them playing in the storage building so I asked them to not play in there...never went outside just saw them from the back porch.
Matt had a little time to spare Tuesday evening before he had to go get the dog so he came home. I told him that I wanted to go out and get the leash and collar so that he could take it to Bruce and Cindy's (our wonderful neighbors who were keeping the dog until Christmas morning). Mason had gone to the neighbor's house for a couple of minutes and it was perfect timing so that he didn't see it. I ran out to the greenhouse...it was pouring down rain by the way....and when I got out there the door was not only unlocked, it was standing WIDE OPEN!! I FROZE! My first thought was that someone had broken in. Then I saw the stuff and one of the boxes (Marleigh's trike) that was in a trashbag had been opened. Then I was MAD...I KNEW what had happend and WHO had done it! I was thinking "how can we afford to go buy all new Santa stuff?" I took off running back to the house...did I mention it was raining....oh and did I also mention that I was wearing Crocs? Rain, Mud, crocs and BEING LIVID.....not a great combination. I rounded the fence post at a dead run and WHOOP...my feet (yes both of them) went right out from under me. I fell on my left shoulder and I guess my left knee. I walked into the house squalling....Matt looked at me like I had two heads and then saw my left side covered in mud. He ran over to me and asked if I was hurt and I said "That's NOT what I'm crying about! Did you leave the Greenhouse unlocked?" You know that look that kids get when they've been caught with a cigarette, or a porn magazine? I mean the top of the line "HOLY ....." and the adam's apple bobs up and down with the swallowing of those "Holy....." words? Yeah, you get the picture. He didn't admit it then.....I don't blame him...it was TOTAL self defense and he was smart. It's funny now and I can laugh about it b/c I found out from the girls next door's mom that they only saw the tricycle. We'd decided already that we were going to save it for her birthday in April anyway. Oh and since I can laugh about it now...imagine Matt's thoughts knowing that I was running b/c of what happened and this is what my knee looked like...
It's kinda hard to tell but this is my left knee and the scrape and knot are on the outside of the knee. The knot was literally the size of a small orange! It's gone down a lot and I can also raise my left arm over my head now.... :-)
So you can see....we had the typical Christmas drama but all is well. The puppy is a huge hit! Marleigh got a motorized four wheeler (small) and loves terrorizing the puppy. I think she considers it payback...the puppy likes to chase her and bite her hiney! He's taken lessons from the Coppertone dog I guess!
We had a wonderful time with our families. We are so fortunate to have such great families and treasure them beyond words. From our family to yours....Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
