Micki turned 9 on November 4th. Man, she is growing up so fast! We had an ice skating party for her and then a couple of the girls came home with us for an impromptu sleepover.

We had plans again for Mike & Karyn to come here for Thankgsgiving like always, but their friend Heidi is going through some tough times and is staying with them for now and due to some circumstances couldn't come down so we decided since Chad had the days off and we had plans with them anyhow, we would just reverse the location. So, we went to Portland and had Thanksgiving there. Tori was able to be in the Macy's parade for her dance team and we watched that, in the pouring rain no less!

Sadly, it was another very sad month for us. Our beloved dog Xenos had started deteriorating very badly, visibly worse each day. I insisted he go to the dog park with our Beagle about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and Chad told me he didn't think he could walk around. He'd been doing fine earlier, but I didn't realize how badly his joints had gotten in a short period of time and it saddened me to see how difficult it was for him to walk, but he still did and seemed to enjoy himself, although he was dragging his legs at times. It was kind of embarrassing as he had lost sooooo much weight and kept losing it even though we were trying everything we could and his appetite was good. Anyway, every day got super worse and when we left for Portland, I wasn't even sure he would be alive when we got back. He was though, but we had to start carrying him outside and back to go potty, he couldn't walk or stand on the wooden floors and we were kept away most of the nights with him. On Monday the vet told us there was nothing we could do for him other than giving him pain pills to help alleviate the pain, he had severe, severe arthritis and it is common for it to suddenly get worse like this and it was also the reason for the weight loss, but there was nothing to be done, each day would get worse and it did. We made an appointment to have him put to sleep and on Wednesday November 29th, Chad and I both sat with Xenos during this time. The kids had loved on him before school and said their goodbyes, so there were no surprises. I was a complete emotional wreck and some days still am.