Strep, Christmas and New Year's, Oh My!

It's been a long while since I wrote. On my last post I said I was feeling loopy, well it turned out that I had strep throat. It took my a full two weeks to get over that and even longer to get the kids all healthy again. Just my luck, none of them got strep so we just had to suffer through without antibiotics.

Then, Christmas. My sister-in-law came to visit for a few days and we all had a great time. We made our annual pilgrimage to Hardware Ranch on a lovely snowy and blowy day. We found out that when the people at the Ranch say the road has been plowed they mean within the last 24 hours. It was a scary trip! On the plus side, there were lots of elk and no other people. Here are a few pictures:

This is either me and Kai or some passing eskimo family. Tough call.

Elk. We were obviously way more impressed with them than they were with us.

Very friendly horses. Honestly, I don't think I would have been that nice if I were stuck out in the cold hauling people around.

A couple days after Christmas we got to come to Salt Lake and see my sister and her husband be sealed to their darling baby and then bless him. What a great experience!

After the craziness of Christmas, I was surprised to find myself accepting an invitation from a friend to take my family to their house on New Year's Eve. We had a ball! They have a karaoke machine and I about laughed myself silly watching the kids (seven of them, ages nine and under, between the two families) sing a wide variety of pop songs. It made me want a karaoke machine of my own! Kids are just so uninhibited!

So anyway, things are more or less back to normal now. Basketball is done for the season.

The kids are back in school, Brian's back to work and Kai has completely regressed in potty training. Sigh. Today it was -2 when we got up. I know, I chose to move here, but -2 and no garage is almost more than I can stand. So I have to say that today I am most grateful:
That my van started even though the sliding doors were frozen shut
That my furnace works
and
That we have plenty of diapers.