To be honest with you, I’d much rather be in sunny Anaheim, California today. It’s Commodity Classic week and seeing a lot of my social media “tribe” in one location and not being there makes me feel like I wasn’t invited to the party. 🙂 But, you know, if you don’t farm, you’re not involved with an organization, not part of Ag media or selling anything a farmer would want, why would you be there? For the best reason, I guess…to see friends…to reconnect. So, I’m hoping everyone has a great time in sunny California while I’m left here to deal with foggy, cold Nebraska. (Sense my sarcasm?)
So, December rolled around. And so did some of the coldest temps we’ve seen in quite a long time. We had -20 on New Year’s Eve. And Jim agreed to go out. I’m certain it was only because we had already made plans with friends. And these friends only live about three miles from us but we don’t do anything together but once a year – on New Year’s Eve.
So, let’s start at the beginning and work our way through the month.
We celebrated Miss Nora’s third birthday with a Barbie cake, lots and lots of pink and one pretty excited little girl!
On Nora’s birthday, we kidnapped Eli and took him to the Nebraska Power Farming Show – the 2nd largest indoor Ag show in the US. We had great fun climbing in and on and around and through every piece of equipment possible. Eli truly was in heaven.
About ten days later, we escaped for a few days and hung out with awesome friends (Bruce & Leigh Krumbach) in Kansas City. Our excuse was to do a little “antiquing”. We had so much fun! We got to hang out with friends, eat out and stay in a hotel. Something the kids always loved doing.
If you haven’t visited Union Station in December, you really should. It was absolutely beautiful!
And now we’re getting closer to Christmas. I had the little kids come over on Jamie’s birthday (the 23rd) so she and Curt could go out and celebrate. They spent the night…under the Christmas tree. The next day, the bigger kids (Brooklyn and Jillian) came over to help us decorate Christmas cookies.
And then it was Christmas.
Our house is so small when everyone shows up. BUT…it’s full and it’s loud and it’s chaotic and I absolutely love having everyone home!
The house got a little bit fuller in the evening when Mark, Candi, Brooklyn and Jillian came over for supper and more presents to unwrap. We all decided, again, to bypass getting gifts for everyone and instead spending the money on a family vacation. We’ll be spending a week together the middle of March in Florida. Can’t wait to wake up to the kids every day for a week. Something we used to do every day and didn’t even think about years ago. Now, it’s a treat!
And that’s it for 2017. Another year come and gone and now we’re well into 2018. Jamie just made a comment today, “You’ll be leaving for the summer before we know it”. Yep, it seems once February is over, spring comes pretty quickly. I know we’re all ready for the warmer weather and getting outside again. The day I’ll have to tell everyone goodbye, though, comes all too quickly now.