It's Emilia again, made another video. This time I decided that theres a person in my life who has made some choices which have made it eaiser for me to be me. I made a video for my mom to show everyone that she works hard to make us all happy. She is very open minded about anything. If I need someone to talk to I know i can always go to her and she wont be judgemental and she'll try hard to understand. I don't think she knows how much a huge part she is to all of us and I don't think any of us have shown her how much she really means to us. So mom this video is for you, it shows many pictures of you how I see you, a hard working yet fun-loving person. You even take at least one day out of the week to work at home so you can put food on the table and still spend time with us. You invite the whole Maryland family to Thanksgiving dinner, and made wonderful food displayed in the video. This is just a small little thank you for all you've done so far for me and all you'll do for me in coming years.Thank you mom for teaching me how to be myself, I love you.

Tinnitus

I learned a new word today. Tinnitus. It's a clinical description of the ringing I've been experiencing in my ears, and it's caused by hearing loss.

Yep. That's what I said. Hearing Loss. I've just found out that I have "significant" hearing loss in both (but primarily the left) ears.

The ringining has been persistant for months, and is mostly just an annoyance (other than it prevents me from falling asleep occasionlly), so I casually made an appointemnt today with an ENT specialist where I had the hearing tests which confirmed his initial diagnosis. Here's a link to hear what tinnitus sounds like.

It's just like that except it doesn't ever stop. Sometimes the tone changes slightly when I eat or yawn. It's most apparent when there's no other sound (like at bedtime).

"Luckily" my hearing loss occurs in the higher frequencies. "Lucky" meaning that right now I have no difficulty hearing normal conversational noise. Not so lucky in that I don't understand well in noisy enviornoments (restaruants, concerts, theater, etc.). Furthermore this type of hearing loss causes difficulty understanding high frequency speech sounds which often give meaning to words. Ch, th, sh, f, p are high frequency sounds.

I'll be wearing hearing aids within three years. The amount of hearing loss which I'm experiencing is typical in someone 30 years older than I am right now. That's the worst thing about the diagnosis, suddenly I feel old. Much older than I felt 4 hours ago at least.

GA Jingle Jog

Kristi joined us in GA for our annual Jingle Jog this year and we had lots of fun. Dan, Katie, Chas and Kristi ran the 5k. Well, I heard that Chas ran and everyone else chased him. Emma and I walked the 2k as Em is still rehabbing from her surgery. Our favorite part of this race is all the free food and games provided by the sponsors. The kids rock climbed, slid down a sinking Titanic slide, rode a pony and we all ate alot! You just can't go wrong with hot wings and Mayfield icecream bars on a beautiful December morning!

I am also including a picture of us making Buckeyes, the candy previously known as peanut butter balls. Chas is show casing his peanut butter snowman.

This fine picture of Dan and Kristi chilling out with their laptops made me laugh as they were both reading/posting to the family blog.

Trippin' down memory lane

Thanks for the letter and Photo disc DAD! It's always fun to get mail that isn't bills, but this was especially fun... A (very) few of my favorites...

Dave's hair and Mike's face. tee hee.

What a bunch of goof-offs! I don't remember this, but BOY do we look like we're having fun at Dan's expense OR WHAT! HAHAha!

Grrrr!

Shazam!

Synchronized Christmas Lights

We took a long drive last night to see a Christmas light display wherein the lights had been synchronized to music. I took the video with my cell phone so the visual and sound quality is not great but you get an idea of how fun it was. We also drove around and saw many other lights including the house of Santa's cousin and the house with 30+ Christmas blow up lawn ornaments!

Can't post to Marley Acres

Am I the only one not able to post to the Marley Acres Blog?? Maybe not because there aren't any new posts this week.

Jaylin Talking

Here is beautiful Jaylin saying beautiful words ... and Auntie Em, Mommy and Grammy Deb egging her on.

Catalina Island

Breck & Charlie gave Mom, Grandma and I tickets to the Lion King in Hollywood for a Christmas present while they were living in Long Beach (and also invited Aunt Kathy). The play was about as good as anything I've ever seen. The picture above shows us visiting Catalina Island. What great fun we had all the time we were there. If you haven't been to Catalina Island you need to add it to your list of things to do. I know this is old news but it's Christmas time and we didn't have the Blog then so I post it now as a reminder of a great time and enjoyable trip.
Thanks again Charlie and Break!
We love you,
Dad

Playing Golf together at Pebble Beach

Mom and I standing on the 7th green at Pebble Beach a few years ago. What a great time we had golfing and site seeing together. Mom hit a number of good shots on this day including a 40' putt in front of a big gallery on #18. We always have fun on our trips and this one was no exception.

Nate and Clay - cookin' Big Pig Style

Nate and Clay looked upon my dinner offering with disdain. "What IS that mom?" they asked. "Taco noodle" I replied, providing a made up name for a made up dish. They each tasted a bite and then in the blink of an eye genetics took over and they started opening cans, crushing chips, squeezing cheese and dumping olives into the dish just like a Big Pig. It was a virtual frenzy of dumping seemingly random ingredients into the pan and endless stirring to combine. Moments later, their dish strongly resembling vomit and the kitchen filled with giddy laughter we all decided that there is something to dump cooking: their dish was PDG (pretty darn good).

Tia comes to Maryland (again)

We were so happy to have our dear tia come through Baltimore on her most recent world tour.

Em and Joe collaborated on a deliciousus breakfast that included Em's 'bangin' french toast (see video below) and Joe's masterful ham and eggs. Em's wonderful pal Myra made the coffee and we all enjoyed a delicious Sunday brunch. Joe even made sure Grandma LaRee's cute Christmas decorations made it to the table ....!

Then we all worked together to make Christmas cookies. We took the recipe out of the Joy of Cooking, which Grandma Marge gave me years ago and laughed out loud when it said, "Grandmothers and aunties who roll cookies for and with children are rare these days." We had a lot of fun, Kristi and I even merged our two cookies to make a tree cookie with a cookie star!

... Em has a special way of cracking eggs. check it out.