Just Some Thoughts

These thoughts are nothing new.  They've been said many times before in many different ways by many different people.  But in the last couple weeks I've been looking through my 2018 pictures while I work on my 2018 scrapbook and this picture keeps bringing them to my mind.  They just keep rolling around in my brain so I'm going to get them out.

The story behind the picture is this:

We had left Maine the day before and spent the night in New Hampshire.  We had several different stops we wanted to make in Vermont- one of them being the Cabot cheese factory.  Typically in our family, I am the driver and Danny is the navigator.  I really enjoy driving and he doesn't necessarily.  I get carsick if I do anything but sit and watch the road.  And he is far better with maps than I am.  Usually I have full confidence in the directions he gives me.  Rarely do I question because he just tells me where to turn and we end up where we want to be.  This particular time I had little to no confidence.  We had pretty much done a U-turn off the main highway we were on and, as you can see in the picture, were now on a very NOT main road.  It was barely gravel.  Some places really were just a narrow dirt road.  It curved and dipped all over the place.  I am not sure how many times I asked him if he was sure, or told him we needed to turn around because he was probably wrong.  He just kept telling me all was well and tried to get me to just enjoy the scenery.  Because it really was pretty.  I kind of enjoyed it, but most of the time I was too busy being afraid we were never going to find our way off of these backroads of Vermont.  And then we came to the top of a really big hill and the view was stunning.  Like, stop the car and take a picture and appreciate what you are seeing stunning.  I know the picture you see above might not look like much.  It's not the whole panoramic view.  But I can look at that picture and remember the feeling of "WOW" I felt when we first saw it.  And guess what?  After that I relaxed quite a bit, enjoyed those back roads and just kept going where Danny said to go.  And sure enough, soon we came to an actual paved road where we turned left and there was the factory we were looking for.

The moral is this:

Sometimes that is how we are with God, isn't it?  And for me, sometimes means many times:)  We are pretty sure the way he is taking us is wrong all wrong.  We are nervous.  We tell him it's not right and we are sure we are lost.  And then the road we didn't want to take ends up being so beautiful.  We see things and experience things we would have never had the chance to had we gone the way we thought was right.  And we are so glad he took us the way he did.  Sometimes the road less travelled makes us say "WOW"!

And there you have it.  My not so new thoughts:)

Christmas Crazies:)

Christmas started off with a trip to Illinois for a few days.  Since we didn't make it out for Thanksgiving this year I was extra excited to go out there!  About 2:00 in the morning the night before we left, Sawyer woke up with the pukes:(  But the next day he seemed fine and away we went.  He scarfed down his lunch with no problems and we were out of the woods!  (Or so I thought.)  We were about 45 minutes away and had to stop for one quick potty break.  Tucker was sooooo sad that he was stuck in his car seat still.  He was ready to be DONE!

Wednesday night we went to the big Christmas program put on by the choir each year at my home church which is always a treat.  I used to love singing with them and so of course I get all sappy and homesick about it but it's still fun to go!  

Thursday morning I went to an old roommate's house to catch up for a couple hours and it wasn't near long enough!!  We could have sat and talked for two more hours.

Thursday night I went out with some of my cousins (and Tucker) for supper.  We embarrassed ourselves by wearing these fabulous sweaters to a "cool" restaurant.  It was great!!

Aaaaaannnnnnnd then I got home and discovered a very sad and sick little girl:(  The poor thing puked all night long every 20-30 minutes and we couldn't do anything for her.  She was finally done around 4:30 in the morning and then slept pretty much the next 24 hours with a few 1/2 hour breaks here and there to get a drink and try to eat a few bites.

Friday night my mom stayed home with Summer so the rest of us could all go to my extended family Christmas.  She was up helping me some the night before too, when at one point I was worried enough to call the on call doctor back home.  Plus cleaned up the first big round of puke while Danny was busy putting Sawyer to bed.  (That's quite a chore these days.)  Thanks mom!

By Saturday Summer was much better and was able to enjoy our immediate family Christmas.

Sawyer stayed healthy too for the rest of the weekend.

Buuuuut……. Danny and I both got it Saturday night:(  Even poor Tucker had a touch of it!  One of those things where I knew it was coming but was trying to convince myself that's not really why I don't feel great.  It's just because I ate too much junk, right?  Wrong!!  So I sat in the corner during family Christmas but I was still able to enjoy it some.

We thought about staying for an early supper on Sunday but decided we had kind of had enough so we hit the road.  The kids slept for a solid two hours in the van, which is pretty miraculous seeing as how it's usually only about 30 minutes when we're driving!

On Monday we did these cute little gingerbread houses that my mom sent with us.  She had planned to do them while we were out there but, you know, puke.

Then we had our own little family Christmas.

On Christmas day, we went to Danny's parent's house right after church, ready to spend the whole day there and waiting for the chaos to ensue.

Summer has been asking for roller skates for several months and she finally got them!  I love the combination here of the headband, messed up hair, and skates.  Looks like she came straight out of the 80's!

A couple years ago we had the famous Fear Factor Christmas.  This year it was Minute To Win It.  One of the games was "poop the potato", but you can't see any of those pictures:)  But we had lots of laughs the whole way through!

Each year the kids to the Christmas play and Summer and her cousin petered out.  They just laid on the floor and talked while the rest of the cousins performed.

We had a few days to recover from the madness of the week and then had one final extended family get together.

And with that, it's Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!