I'm Baaack!

My sister informed me that she didn't know I even had a blog, to which I replied "Yes you do, you've replied to posts several times!" After thinking about it for a minute she said "Oh yeah, I remember now, I guess I forgot because IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE YOU POSTED ANYTHING!!" She's right, I've been a blogger loser... sorry!

Life's been fun and busy since I last posted. We've been trying to get things ready for Mikkel to leave on his mission for one thing. He reports on March fourth so we haven't had to rush like crazy but there's quite a lot to do. My current project is to find somewhere for Mikkel to get the typhoid shot and then figure it around his schedule so if he gets sick from the shot he won't miss too much work. He's been working a lot lately (38 hours this week!) which means he'll be able to pay for a larger portion of his mission but it also means that I have to do a lot of the scheduling and running around for him.

Christmas and New Year were wonderful. Santa brought us a "jumperline" (trampoline) and a puppy. Mikkel got mission stuff - of course! Jacob got a golf set (little tikes, not a real one!), Abigail - a kitchen, Daniel - a little tikes cozy coupe and Isabelle - clothes. We didn't go anywhere so it was nice and relaxing. I really wanted to spend Christmas with just our little family, I think this will have been our last (all together) for a while so I was being all sentimental. New Year's Eve was spent playing games and eating a ton of food at our friends home. We also went out to dinner with another couple and I tried sushi for the first time. It was alot of fun to go out with just adults and then spend the rest of the night with all of us together. Again, all sentimental!

We also celebrated Jacob's and Abigail's birthdays with a donut party, it was fun and totally easy... the kids played outside on the swingset and then came in to eat donuts and open presents, then they went home! I loved it! Mikkel had his 19th birthday just the other day but we haven't had a party yet... maybe we could just have all the big kids play on the swingset and eat doughnuts?!?

Isabelle was in the city swim meet where she dropped three seconds on her breast stroke, yippee! She showed her goat in the county livestock show and had a good time with that even though they didn't place.

I had surgery on January 8th so that has slowed me down a ton! I was told no activity whatsoever for two weeks (yeah, right!) and a total recovery time of six weeks, so AnneMarie came to help out last week. It was so nice to have her here, I was able to get a lot of rest knowing she was taking care of the kids and house. She left yesterday and already the house is a wreck! We took her out to lunch on Saturday to a place we've never been and it was pretty good. If you watch Throwdown with Bobby Flay, it was the place where he had the puffy taco challenge. Isabelle had cabrito and we each had a puffy taco with our meal. I can see why they were on Bobby Flay's show, they were pretty tasty! Cabrito is slow roasted goat kid and it was YUMMY!

Our next adventure is the FFA/4H livestock show next week where Felix (the goat) will actually be sold and we'll be goat free until this summer. Isabelle is also in her last meet next weekend and then she'll start water polo... the reason she's been slogging through swimming all season! She loves playing water polo and wants to join a league but they're all too far away (30 minute drive) so she has to settle for school water polo. Finally, we're going to drive to Utah to take Mikkel to the missionary training center where he'll learn Spanish and practice teaching so that when he gets to Mexico he'll be (slightly) more effective than if he just went straight there. He'll still have a lot to learn of course but nine weeks in training will certainly help!