A Lot Can Happen In 7 Months

So I’ve been a bit lax in updating the blog lately…  I think that it is because there have been so many changes in our lives these past few months that it’s been a bit overwhelming!

Church

After 10 years at the same church we made the decision to part ways.  Several events happened that made it glaringly clear in our eyes that we were to move on.  I think that taking a bit of time off to heal, refocus and rededicate ourselves has done wonders as we have put ourselves out there into the search for a new church family.  This is not really very fun.  I thought that I would like it a lot more, but it’s a tad awkward walking into a new place each week, not knowing anyone, afraid that I might mistakenly take a ‘regulars’ pew…  you know the run down…  but we are determined to find a good fit for us and won’t give up until we do!

Florida Trip

 

This past October, Koltin & I went on a trip together to Disney World & Universal Studios in Florida.  It was exciting for both of us, as it was Koltin’s first plane ride and it was the first time that I had ever really taken one of my kids off on an adventure so far from home by myself.   Both Hayden & Mike have no interest in flying so they chose to stay home.   I tried to prep him as to what to do if I keeled over dead, or some other traumatic event happened, but all was well, and our training was fortunately not needed.  We stayed at a fabulous hotel at Disneyworld called Kingdom Lodge that was surrounded by a wildlife refuge, so it was not unusual to see a family of giraffes or a zebra or two right outside the window.  Very cool place.  Our favorite place was Hogwarts at Universal Studios where we dined on huge turkey legs,  sipped butter beer, and picked out the perfect wand.  Great place to be… unfortunately for me, Koltin had no desire to go to any other place in both Universal Studios at that location so I didn’t get to see nearly as much as I would have liked to… I’ve decided that I would probably have much more fun without my kids at these places because they don’t really like the rides and just want to hang out in the hotel room… kind of like their father… 

Women of Faith

 

Just had to put a note here, for this short trip…  Cindy Dragoo & I went again this year to the Women of Faith Conference at Arco in Sacramento…  We knew that we had seats on the floor but had NO idea how close we would be to the actual speakers…  We were in the front row, right behind them, in fact, in most of my photos you will see the back of Sheila Walsh’s head… or one of the Mary Mary sisters, or even Mandisa….  AMAZING SEATS and Cindy & I, being the worship girls that we were, had a BALL!  If any of you women have the opportunity to attend a WOF conference, GO!

Fort Bragg

 

Took our annual trip to the beach house in Cleone again this past November.  I just love that place!  It’s huge, private and in a fabulous location.  It’s a nice break, Mike doesn’t freak out because the cell phone works there (yea!), and it’s fun to hang out with the family!  This year Mike’s mom Becky came, as well as Jenny, Bryan & their boys Casey & Lucas, and we included my niece Bailey with our family…  Can’t wait until next year!

Christmas

I was kind of bummed this past year at Christmas because I was hoping to be in the new house by then, but it didn’t happen!  I didn’t deck the halls quite as much as I usually did, probably because I knew what got unpacked, had to be repacked, and I was soooooo tired of packing.  The entire Christmas week was stressful with family emergencies and I was just glad when it was all over!  We went to an incredible  Christmas Eve Service in Chico, and to our traditional Chinese food dinner with the Slinkard & Shadd’s afterwards.  That was really fun!  Christmas morning brought the other traditional meal of biscuits & chocolate gravy over at Grammy Norma & Papa Jere’s home next door… very yummy!

The Moves

 January brought in the first move of the year for us, we officially moved Shadd Trucking to a location in town.  The new yard is large enough to fit all of our trucks, has a large shop with a couple of offices.  We leased it for 6 months and hope to buy the location when the time is right.  I have to admit that it is nice, as the light sleeper that I am, that I am not awakened several times each morning as each truck leaves on its daily runs.  All is good!

February brought in the second move of the year for us… OUR NEW HOME!  Yea!  We now live in our fabulous (well at least to us!) home that we designed ourselves and are incredibly happy!  No one has to share a bathroom, everyone has their own space, and, well it’s great!  The bad part is that our old home still sits there, not completely empty and it is proving harder and harder to go over there to pack!  We do have a timeline though, we are donating the home to our local fire personnel to use as they see fit for training purposes so it shall burn sometime prior to June.  I guess I better get on that packing, shouldn’t I?

Grandma’s 90^th Birthday Party

 

Last month my Grandma Arlene turned 90, and we planned a HUGE party for her!  It was a great opportunity to host family from near and far and boy was it a success!  My Aunt Tanya said that she counted well over 100 guests!  It was a bit of fun, because Dad kept asking how many people were coming, and we’d totally down play it… you know, we sent out 40 invites, plus family, etc. etc. so he was a bit surprised at all of those bodies!  He’s a worry wart, but with everything under control (i.e. he doesn’t have any responsibilities) he likes a good party.  I enjoyed having my cousins to myself here at our house.  Gerald flew in from Boston, Becky from Colorado, KC (and the well-dressed Stella) drove down from Washington & James and Kelly along with their children drove down from Oregon.  It was fun having so many people around all weekend long!  I think that Grandma was very pleased with the party and the write up in the local newspaper, with a great photo of her in it… that of course I took!  The one missing cousin (and family) was excused as Melissa & Travis had just welcomed their newborn baby girl “Shelby” in the week prior to then…  we will forgive them for inconveniently planning a child during that particular week, and will expect them to curb any future procreation due during an invite to a party held in California J  Missed you guys!

Current Events

So thankfully life is slowing down a bit for us…  Mike’s business is still going strong into the more profitable summer months, so thank the Lord for that blessing!  Hayden has been keeping busy with his FFA events, and particularly his Ag Mechanics class of which his team (of 4 young men) is going to the state competition at Cal Poly next month.  Koltin is just plugging away in 6^th grade, has found that junior high is a bit more of an adjustment than anticipated, but will pull through just fine!  I am keeping busy with attempting to keep our house managed, working part time at our new office and am looking forward to doing a bit of gardening soon!  We are hoping to get a few sidewalks in around the house and I am slowly trying to envision what I want as landscaping…  until then, I find that I absolutely love to lose myself in my music while mowing my acres of weeds.  It’s really quite an attractive vision, me bopping to my tunes, singing quite loudly (which thankfully no one can hear though over the roar of the engine!) wearing shorts with white legs glowing (note to self… buy some tanning lotion), a huge floppy hat (because I certainly do not need any more wrinkles), ginormous sunglasses (eye issues, blah) and dogs trailing me (in case I run over something tasty).  Occasionally I’ll catch Mike looking out the back window at my zippy little self,   and he just smiles…  I’m going to believe in my head that he is amused by my reckless abandonment of propriety, rather mocking my absurd mowing ensemble…  Whatever…  it makes me happy, and so I shall persevere, and pray that he does not decide to take any photos.