2014

Happy 2014. 

I'm one that likes even numbered years, so I'm looking forward to 2014 for no other reason than that. 
We had our family Christmas here the weekend before Christmas and then spent Christmas week down in IA.  We came back up here and John took off New Year's Eve to do fun family stuff.  So today is actually our first "back to normal" day.  Almost 2 weeks of being off schedule sure makes it hard to climb back on the wagon.  By 1:00 today I was ready to call it a day.  How can there be so much stuff to catch up on already?!

We went down to IA on Christmas Eve.  My side got together that evening.  We played cards, dice and some of the younger ones opened a few gifts.  It was pretty low key and it seems everyone had a good time.  My brother had been going through some health stuff recently and so it was good to talk with him.  He seemed to be doing very well. 

Wednesday we went out to the farm and had a partial Christmas there, which included tubing down a hill.  The kids had a great time.  Will really liked his mini pool table and Katie had a good time experimenting with her new microscope.  We finished up Christmas at the farm on Thursday evening when John's aunt could join us.  Again, the kids got quite the haul and there was even an authentic Mexican piñata. 

I had to leave a bit early that evening because I got word that my brother was being taken to the ER after suffering (what we thought) was a seizure like episode.  He spent the night there, with no real answers.  We decided to stay in town a bit longer so that my older sister, my niece and I could take him to the big city hospital the next day for an MRI.  Long story short - we still don't know what's going on.  His headaches, tremors and shakes that he was having have seemed to improve, but the MRI was all clear.  He was diagnosed with Lyme's disease years ago and struggle with that for a very long time.  They are exploring whether these episodes and symptoms have anything to do with that. 

We, as a family, have been keeping it pretty quiet - especially since there is nothing to tell, no answers to why these things are happening.  But, I shared on here because I felt like it.  So there. :)

By New Year's Eve the kids were pretty tired.  They didn't even ask to stay up late.  We went roller skating that day....it was awesome.  John has a great video of Will skating that I must share - and will -  as soon as I get it from him.  John and I stayed up - like we usually do and watched TV.  Now that the expanded cable is gone, we were stuck with what the networks were showing and I must say, most of it sucked.  Today everyone was a bit slow getting up and out the door, but it's a short week and I think we can do it.  Play practice starts this weekend - we'll see how that goes!