Day trip

Wednesday was the "unofficial end" to our Christmas vacation. Mike went back to work on Thursday. Beth and I are still off school till after the New Year... But Mike always likes to put in a couple days of work at the end of the year when everybody else is gone. So, I know you're dying to know... What did my family and I do for our last day of Christmas break?? Why, they accompanied me to the Cities to see a hormonal specialist!   Yay! Yeah, not exactly festive.  But they were booked out over 2 months...so I took the first date they had to offer.  I don't especially enjoy Doctor's appointments.  Especially when it's talking about the...ahem...intimate details of my life and health with a man I've never met. But the guy is supposed to be good.  So...I went. And normally it's not the kind of thing that I would blog about. But I'm making an exception because instead of being a day that I want to forget . . . . . . it ended up being a day that I want to remember.  We ventured up to the appointment just under 2 hours away from home.  Then, my family checked out some stores in the area while I had my appointment...which was basically a consultation that lasted over an hour. When it was time to wrap up the appointment, the Doctor asked me, besides regulating my hormones, to list a few things areas where I hope to see improvement.  I explained to the guy that I wasn't hoping for any miracles, and that any steps in the right direction would be much appreciated.  But, I listed 3 basic things...  I said I hoped that I would be able to sleep better...which would result in a bit more energy...and that I would be able to handle stress a little better...   I came out of the Doctor's office and there were the smiling faces of my family waiting for me in the waiting room.  I can't tell you how much that meant to me at that moment.  Something about seeing their faces was just the most comforting thing in the world to me at that moment.  And really, just their "being there" was enough... We left the office and went down to the van, and guess what was waiting for me?  

 Flowers . . . 3 bottles of lotion . . . . . . and dark chocolate peanut butter cups.  Shhhh . . . If you look closely at the bottles of lotion, you will see their names: Stress relief . . . Energy . . . Sleep . . . Now, obviously, nobody in the world knows me better than my husband.  But it wasn't like I expressed a lot of anxiety about the appointment or gave him a run-down of what I hoped to gain from seeing this Doctor.   You might say stress relief, energy, and sleep are something we all need more of, and they're generic enough to explain away as chance.  But I don't think so.  My hubby is not exactly the sort of a guy who showers me with flowers and chocolate.  So, this was unexpected to say the least.  But more than that, it was just so comforting to know that--no matter what the future holds--I have the loving support of my family. We ended up finding a great business district right across the highway from the clinic with lots of restaurants and an outdoor mall with lots of fun stores, and it ended up being a really fun way to end our Christmas vacation. God is good!