Then Life Happened...

Hello Dear Friends. It's been a long time. It's amazing how busy life gets with three little ones underfoot and making sudden life decisions. Where do I start? So much happened in 2015 that I have felt intimidated and overwhelmed to come back and write, but I need to write. I long to write.

I'll just start with an overview of the year. Consider it my Christmas newsletter. In March I turned the big 3-0. Carlin threw me a party complete with a rented frozen yogurt machine from Earth Fruits. It was pretty awesome. However, the really BIG part of my birthday came almost a month later when best friend Whitney and I headed to Cozumel for a week-long girl's trip. It was amazing. It was my first time out of the country, my first time snorkeling and my first time to get burned to a crisp, several times. But it was all worth it. We sat on the beach, snorkeled and I saw a seahorse, had ceviches and marquesitas, explored the ruins of Tulum and enjoyed some well-deserved girlfriend time. I came back relaxed and ready to tackle life again.

Which was a good thing because I hit the ground running. Jacob turned 2 on May 6 and to celebrate a tornado hit our house. It was mild damage and everyone was safe but we had to replace windows and the roof plus clean up fallen branches and debris all over. Our air conditioner also broke, turned out when the heater guys replaced our furnace they cracked the drainage pan for the air conditioner. They claimed it was old and about to go anyway and refused to fix it. So that was one more thing out of our budget. So, to recap for 2015 we had to replace: the furnace, air conditioner, roof and windows of our house. Needless to say we were strapped for cash by the time it was all done. Then our car decided to die - needed a new alternator, batttery, belt and something else.

All of this combined with a struggle to convince the elementary school that Samuel needed services specific to autism resulted in a rather hasty decision to sale our home. It had been something we had been playing around with as we were starting to outgrow our house and wanted a better location. By the end of May Carlin had had enough and we put it on the market. We immediately found a house we LOVED but couldn't buy it until we sold our house. Turns out, we knew the owners of the house and they agreed to give us the summer to sale our home. Three months and some Realtor drama later and we got an offer on our house, asking price. After a ton of delays and living out of suitcases for a week (with school in session) we finally made it into our new house.

While all of the packing and house showing went on we also celebrated Samuel's 7th birthday by taking him to Legoland in Dallas and catching up with some friends of ours who had moved earlier in the year. Samuel loved it. There was an anniversary, Carlin's birthday, a trip to the Salt Plains to dig for crystals and our annual Watermelon Festival trip. All in all it was a great summer.

Fall took off at a full sprint and we never slowed down. I attended one of the easiest IEP meetings I've ever had - they met all my requests plus made some additional suggestions. Samuel and Lilly love their new school. We moved into our new house at the end of September and have enjoyed the park, the duck pond and our mini-park in our back yard complete with a fire pit in which we've roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. For Halloween we had a Storm Trooper, Elsa and Curious George. We hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas for our families and I made my first ever turkey.

We also had some tragedy hit when we were present at the OSU Homecoming Parade when a woman decided to drive her car into the crowd of hundreds. 4 people were killed and almost 50 others injured. We had stepped off the street moments before it happened, however, my former boss and friend Bonnie Stone and her husband Marv were killed at the scene of the accident.

2015 was draining for us, emotionally, physically and financially. All of that was just the big stuff. We also had our day-to-day living to do. I'm Relief Society secretary, Carlin is chorister and Elder's quorum teacher. Jacob while not in the spotlight much is keeping up with his siblings and has done everything from dump an entire bottle of baby powder on himself to TPig my house and digging holes into our walls. Needless to say I'm a bit exhausted. And that's why I haven't visited my blog in so long. It's just been crazy. But I need this outlet once more, so if you're still out there reading this somewhere I promise, I'm back.