While I haven’t done a lot of blogging this year, it’s definitely been a wild ride for our family. So much has changed for us, but much of it has been positive.
The first part of the year was fairly quiet, I think. Chris turned the big 3-0. But, I don’t remember any really big happenings, except that I was hired permanently after spending a year working contract for the company. In June, my daughter moved back in with us, after graduating from high school. She lived with her dad for the previous five years, so having her here on a daily basis took some adjustment, but now I think we’re settled. She had huge changes in her life – she graduated from high school, moved 75 miles to be here, got her very first job, and started college all in a space of about three months! And my son started his junior year of high school – that was sort of hard on me!
In September, I made my very first trip out of the country (if you exclude Mexico) to the UK, for work. I’m going again in a couple of weeks, so the new may wear off that very quickly. LOL In October, we made the decision once and for all, to let the house I bought nearly five years ago to be foreclosed on by the bank. That was a difficult decision, to be sure. But we found a house to rent in the same neighborhood and moved in November. Everyone agrees that the new house has a much nicer layout than the old one, but sometimes I still miss “my” house. It breaks my heart to think that I lost that house because the bank was playing games with me. But in the end, maybe it works out for the best; we had a wonderful holiday season in this house, and it’s not quite over yet – we still have New Year’s Eve and Day coming toward us!
We hosted both of our families on different days for Christmas – mine on the 24th, Chris’s on the 25th. It was a great experience, but in the future, we think we’ll spread them out some. I don’t think my family will be adverse to celebrating a week early – due to work schedules, everyone couldn’t be with us anyway. If we change our family gathering to the weekend before Christmas, I think we can make it work next year.
This year has just flown by, and I’m sure next year will not be different in that regard. But I’m looking forward to another year of awesomeness with my family. 
