Giving thanks at Christmas

Many of you know that my Mom and Joe were on flight 1404 that crashed during take off in Denver on Saturday night. They were on their way to join us in Houston for Christmas. John answered Mom's call from someone else's phone (since they had to evacuate so quickly with only the clothes on their backs). Her first words were "we are standing on the tarmac watching our plane burning." You can only imagine the look on John's face to hear this and my rush of fear at seeing his face. Mom was seated right where the burnt hole is on the right side of the plane. Fortunately they arrived safely on Sunday afternoon on the special flight that Continental arranged and were greeted by Contintental's CEO. In light of the circumstances, they are appreciative of everything that Continental is trying to do to make things right. They are doing pretty well, but Mom has a lot of face pain and a black eye and both of them are sore from the jolts. But they are taking it all in stride. Unfortunately, much of the last two days has been filled with getting cell phones, trying to work remotely without Mom's laptop, buying necessities and detailing everything they had on the plane. Somehow, in between all of that, there has been time for picnics in the living room, connect 4 games, monster games with Jojo and Christmas treats. We are all especially thankful this Christmas, and we appreciate those who have called and emailed us.

Our pastor at church called today to let us know that the person in critical condition that we keep hearing about on the news belongs to our church and is undergoing 6 or 7 hour surgery for her broken back today in Denver. Mom and Joe talked to her husband extensively while in the hospital in Denver since they were in side by side rooms. We are praying she is OK.

I am attaching a few photos of the past few days as well as videos that have been on the news. We were actually on the local ABC news Sunday night and Monday morning. You can see Joshua's blissfully happy face as he was unaware of what we could have lost.





A visit to Santa while waiting to hear that Gigi and Jojo arrived at the airport in Houston.










After getting to the house, the boys first wanted Gigi and Jojo to try out the new basketball goal, our family Christmas present this year.




Bedtime stories with a very happy to be here Gigi and Jojo.

Breakfast picnic Tuesday morning at Caleb's request.

The first photos we saw of the plane crash.