~Family Update~

Good morning Friends and Family~ Boy do we have a mess on our hands here in the West... In December we had over 60 inches of snowfall.... hit a one month record!!! Well now...... we have the Pineapple express making its warm way through... and melting the snow and adding some rain. They have cancelled school again due to the road conditions. It is just such a mess!! Now hopefully though all the snow will melt ice off all our roof tops ... but not flood our basements. The roads are a sloshy mess. The kids have no sidewalks to walk on because of all the snow the plows have pushed off the roads... so they are walking in the streets and it is very dangerous!!! I know yesterday Glori's school had a few leaks in a few places, and I sure hope once the snow got wet with rain it didn't cause any bigger damages to the buildings. Joey went to take out the trash today and the water at the end of our driveway was up to his mid calf. Just standing water. It sure is somethin!!!! Getting back to work for me this week has been a smooth transistion... no school means less kiddos to take care of since most of my daycare kiddos are school teachers kids. Monday I only had one child. Yesterday I had a full house, and then today is still up in the air. I have one so far today... we'll see who else makes it in. I'm getting a lot of my work done and paperwork so that is nice. If watching kids was all I had to do this job would be a piece of cake for me. It's all the paperwork and other responsibilities with the job that make it hard. Then there is the fact of when do I find the time to do it all. Can't be working on paperwork while I have kids to take care of. So sometimes it makes for a long day. Especially now with the end of the year paperwork. I had a really nice break though and I'm so glad I took the time off work. It really left me rested and relaxed!!! The girls are doing great!! They had a fabulous Christmas. Part of our Christmas was up in a condo at Schweitzer mountain. I did nothing but sit around. It was SUPER!!! We went with some friends and the kids just skied non stop. Glori and her friend skied the bunny hill and I could see them from the condo fly down the bunny hill then I could watch for them going back up on the ski lift. Hailey and her friend went up higher on the mountain and had a good time. They would both come back with war stories though. (haha) How beat up they were from missing a jump or landing.... but not quite landing. (haha) I'm not a skier, but the other mom who went with us stayed with the big kids most of the time. Joey and his buddy got stuck on the back side of the mountain. They took a break skiing with the kids and took off on their own. Then the lift broke and they had to be brought back down the mountain on a snow cat. They about froze waiting their turn. They had to bring around 300 people off the mountain like that... cramming them in trip by trip. Not too fun for them. I stayed at the condo and cooked a few meals and did little else..... oh ya... and doing a little hot tubbin too. It was so cool sitting in the hot tub staring out at the woods and stars!! It was such a nice relaxing time. I could have stayed there forever!!! Home school and ski all year. (hahaha) Have a cabin at the lake for summer. What a life. (haha) We came home Christmas eve and had a nice Christmas morning. The girls got a Wii game system. They have had a blast with it. They have a fitness test you can do instead of playing the games. You do the test to see your physical fitness level...... the first time I took it.....my results were a 65 year old..... then yesterday I got 80 year old. I'm not doing too good. Glori said...... you just need to practice mom. (haha) Glori also got an electric guitar and a sewing machine. She's been using them both and having a great time. She thinks she's a rock star!! I got some money for some new boots and Joey got a poker table for Christmas. We all got exactly what we wanted!!! Our winter break keeps going and going. The kids have LOVED it. We've been spending a ton of time with a group of friends. We met these friends through Joey coaching softball. There are 4 other families and they all have a girl around Glori's age and then 2 of the families have boys Hailey's age...... I know.... we gotta watch out. (haha) Theya re best friends now..... and I hope they stay that way as they get older!!! They all get along so great and have fun together. One night we went for dinner, games, and the kids had a big snow ball fight. Across the road is a huge sledding hill the kids had a blast on. Then another night we went for sledding and bonfire..... and in comes 3 snow mobiles. The girls are still grinning about how fun they were. Hailey got to drive one of them and she talks about how fun it was. Since we've had so much snow this year we've seen quite a few people in our neighborhood riding their snow mobiles on the sidewalks here. The plows make these huge piles on our sidewalks so along side the roads..... there are people riding up and down the road on them. They sure seem fun!!! We've had some nice and relaxing times and it has been really special to spend it with our friends. Being in the military it is hard making good lasting friendships. There are a couple, but once people move away it is harder to stay in each other's lives. Once we moved to Medical Lake and got to know these softball families better... we gradually started doing more and more things together. It is a nice mix of friends.... and very different being they are all rooted here in the area. Joey has been working a ton since back from his Christmas break. He's had weekend duty twice and starting today he's on 12 hour shifts. Then soon he'll be heading East for a week. He wasn't slotted to go, but the guy who was going to go broke his wrist snow boarding. So they were going to pull a guy from a different job to go... but he broke his rib on the same ski trip... so now... Joey gets to go. Being back on the flight line is a little more stressful than his instructors job he's had the past 5 years. The lack of man power has been the big issue. And especially during the winter when they have to have crews of guys de-icing the planes that takes away guys who could be doing the jobs. So it gets tough and man power gets stretched thin. Which means longer hours!! YUCK!! He should get back from this trip just in time for his birthday though!! If any of you want to make it out for that...... come on over!!!