i'm back ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

A NEW YEAR - there's nothing like a fresh new start (and a new haircut - thanks Whit!) to perk you right up! It's been too long and now it's time to catch up with journaling and what's going on in our lives! Let me start by saying, "We had an amazing holiday - memorable, to put it mildly!" There were some definite challenges but isn't that what life is all about? And, would you believe, I have a butt-load (did I honestly say that?) of photos ! ! ! Imagine - yikes!

I had to let blogging go almost a month - I had too much going on with Christmas approaching and all of our 7 kids and their families coming home - massive stress and planning was going on! Haven't done that in over 4 years - blogging (journaling) has become a habit - kind of like brushing and flossing (okay, I confess - I floss everyday!!!!!) your teeth before you go to bed.

Well, why not start with some of the struggles - just to make life interesting! Our little Bella-Boo lost her leg - such an emotional journey for me!!!! Bella was just fine (dogs are like that, you know) - they don't stress, it's us humans that don't deal well with change! Her leg never healed and we had no other choice - I cried and cried and cried and cried until my eyes had bags on top of bags going on! No! It wasn't pretty - me that is! She's doing great now and gets around just fine. The only thing she can't do is jump up on the couch -is that bad?!

Right after Thanksgiving my mom starting complaining about not feeling well! Aches and pains of getting older . . . no, I don't think so! How about a whopping, painful case of SHINGLES!!!!!!! I've heard of this condition often throughout my life but now have a much better idea of just how horrible it actually is! I call it, "Adult Chickenpox" and dude, I pray I never-ever get it! Big, bad-stuff! I'd rather have another 7 children than come down with that and at my age, that's saying something!!! I must add that G-ma was so brave in going through it and has under-gone (good grammar?) a lesson in patience and grit! We go through things for a reason! Her timing was impeccable as she was on the down-side of it when Christmas rolled around and she was actually able to enjoy the holidays! This was the G-rated version of the entire experience! LOL!

At Thanksgiving Cort, Ash and the boys came to visit and Ashley had a brilliant idea! Let's rent a cabin for Christmas for the entire family! All 7 of our kids and 13 grandkids were coming home for the hoiday - where on earth were we going to put all those people? A Christmas Cabin would be perfect - so Ash researched out all the possibilities and we found the perfect place only 20 minutes away from our home and on 100 acres of property - now that's plenty of room for everyone and tons of stuff for the grandkids to do! We couldn't have planned it any better had we planned for an entire year! After Thanksgiving, Kandee and I went and checked it out and it was perfect, perfect, perfect for what we needed! Huge, built like Fort Knox, tons of stuff for kids to do and family-friendly. Sweet! That will be my next update, "Our Christmas Cabin"!

I sure hope you had a memorable Christmas and New Year. I've missed you all terribly and hope you'll leave a comment and let me know how you're doing!

Hugs to all!

Click here for updated photos of December 30th, 2010 - "Dinner In the Tetons" - I wanna go back!