Thursday, December 6th

Chloe tells her superior Nadia Yassir that she got a weird military request from Homeland Security. Nadia confirms that this is the assault on Assad. They will find him by using Jack Bauer. Chloe is surprised when Nadia tells her that President Palmer negotiated the release of Jack from a Chinese prison. Nadia refuses to give Chloe any more information, but says that Buchanan is meeting Jack at an airfield.

Now that Joanne is leading a relatively normal life, I thought I needed spice up the entries with a little action, courtesy of 24 season six. Jo is continuing to make strides. Her speech therapist is teaching her to slow down and systematically plan what she wants to say. You can imagine how difficult that is, especially for Joanne who is a go, go, go, type A, get things done quickly, kind of gal. As our life is getting back to normal, Joanne is becoming more involved with everyday chores. She is helping the kids with homework, but they do need to be watchful of her "help", since she still tends to say the wrong words and calls us each by the wrong name. It can be very confusing to Isabel, when Joanne is emphatically saying, "Oliver, OLIVER, why don't you look at me when I talk to you?" The teary answer, "I'm Isabel." We are fortunate that somehow I am able to know what she is trying to say. I suppose 17 years of marriage has paid off. I know that she is starting to feel out of touch and out of control of some things. I have begun doing the Christmas shopping which she usually does the lion's share. She teased me yesterday when I said I finished shopping for the kids, she said, "That's good. You never shop before December 24."

Please continue to pray that Joanne will not become discouraged. She is very bothered by the fact that her hand isn't working and that she comes out with crazy words. Pray that I will remain patient when trying to understand her when she really isn't making sense and I am distracted by other things I need to take care of. And Pray that the children will not see her in any lesser way as their mother and as an authority over them. The fact that she mixes up her words, often makes us laugh, but I see that it can also lessen her ability to be authoritative with the kids. As always, thank you so much for your continued support of our family during this crazy journey.