The Year In Review (Just A Few Days Into the New Year!)

Hello to all! For those who aren't in the know: Our Christmas cards came late this year. In fact, they arrived yesterday. So we missed sending out the holiday cards and from what I've read on Facebook, we are in good company! Oh well. You'll still get them in the mail this week if I can find everyone's addresses. :-) We didn't do a newsletter, but here is what we would've written: This year has been a bit of a roller coaster. Good and bad, we survived another year, and are happy to be looking forward to new adventures. There have been a few struggles, changes and challenges this year. In February, we found out our dog, Christopher, had Stage 4 Lymphoma. After a lot of thinking through things and prayers, we decided as a family to try to give Chris the best shot we could, and he underwent chemotherapy. After two rounds (out of 12!) he went into clinical remission. Currently, his lymph nodes are starting to grow in size, but he does not seem to have any illness or appear sick, thankfully. Also, we were told that the average amount of time he would have left would be between 6-9 months, and even less because his cancer was the more aggressive t-cell and he was later staged. However, as of this post, Chris is hitting 11 months post-diagnosis, so we are all happy with that! As if one sick dog wasn't enough, we also acquired two more this year! Kandi is Jeff's childhood dog, and at 15, she is still around. Jeff's parents moved into a new place that she couldn't go to, so we took her in. For an older dog, she has not been difficult. The last few weeks of the year, however, have been really tough on her. California has been extremely cold (actually reaching freezing temperatures) and that is not good for an old dog that has arthritis. We took her to the vet at the beginning of the month, but the first medications she got not only weren't helping her, but made her even more frail and ill. To be honest, we weren't sure she'd make it to the new year, but when we changed her medicine, she went back to being her old self. She's not moving the greatest, but at least she isn't in pain and can get around. We also found another addition this year. Around the fourth of July, a little chihuahua found his way into our garage. We kept him, thinking his family was just on vacation, but no one ever claimed him, and a few weeks later, we discovered why he might have been thrown out. Pepino (what we've named him) is epileptic and prone to seizures. The first time this happened was very scary and we had nighgtmares the next few days about it. Now that we are more versed, we have had his seizures under better control. Medications fortunately aren't that expensive (about $10 for a 60-day script) and they have worked very well for him. He went from about a seizure every 2-3 weeks to now having had his last seizure in October! Both Pepino and Kandi get along great with our other pets, and both Fox and Jacob enjoy having new people to play with when Chris decides he's done with them! But our year wasn't just about the dogs. Both of us have returned to school. Jen took a leave of absence last year because of her migraines, and started back up this past summer. So far she has been doing well with her classes, and this semester she will not have a "bookwork" class. Rather, her bosses at Easter Seals helped her acquire an internship with their speech pathologists. She will be driving to Oakland once a week, every Monday, to do this. It means that, from mid-January until mid-May, she will essentially be "working" 6 days a week, but she is excited to learn more about her company and about how they perform therapy. In fact, her advisors are excited to have her, because they use a play-based method of interaction with the clients and have wanted BIs (Behavior Interventionists, Jen's current position) to come in and show them some tips, so everyone will be learning in this new endeavor. Jeff is also going back to school, and has completed his first term at the local junior college. Because of his company's policy, he is only able to take 2 classes at a time, which works out well enough. So far he has been looking at business classes, but ultimately he wants to go for his MBA as well as his Series 6 and 63 or Series 7. He is still working with New York Life and has enjoyed it thus far. Starting out as a new associate isn't easy but he's had some success, and a lot of his colleagues go to him for questions, especially with the Hispanic market, as Jeff is the only Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking agent in his office in Fremont. Over the past year, Jeff has acquired licenses to sell insurance in California, Utah, Arizona, Idaho and North Carolina, and recently was certified to sell health insurance as well. We haven't been able to travel, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fun! We were able to take the puppies to the snow, we went to two formal galas for our work, we went to different museums, had Thanksgiving in our house for the first time in four years of living here, celebrated our anniversary sick (And had a do-over at the ballet a few weeks later), and enjoyed a VERY long holiday season. This year, we even decked out our house, enjoyed the light show a neighbor put on that got him on the news, celebrated Christmas multiple times, and basically had a holiday-type thing every day from December 22nd until today. We really embraced the holidays! This coming year has a lot more to look forward to: hopefully another snow trip, Jeff's gala coming up in a month, more learning and growing and more travel. But we aren't going to tell you all the details; you'll just have to stay tuned to find out what we are up to. Love you you all, and we hope you had a fun and wonderful 2013. Here's to 2014! Jeffery and Jennifer Perry (and their zoo)