Where Have I Been?

Time has definitely gotten away from me these past few months!  Ever since Mark and I finished up our hikes for the year, band rehearsals have started up again, along with our music lessons, almost daily trumpet (Mark) and drum (me) practices, band camp planning, daily exercise workouts, and lots of social activities with our friends.  This has left us with little "free" time, but I'm not complaining!  I love everything I'm doing!  One thing is for sure...I'm never bored...life stays quite interesting!

We managed to fit in a trip to the East Coast to visit with Mom and Gene (PA), Julie, Alex, and Zachary (NJ), and Larry, Stephanie, Lucas, and Samantha (DE) during Thanksgiving.  We just missed seeing Ray as the only place he could find "union" work was in Florida!  After 7 1/2 weeks working down there, the "travellers" were laid off...again!   

We are so glad we took the trip back East because it was so good seeing everyone again!    Gene celebrated his 87th birthday while we were there.  He's had a lot of health issues over the past year, so this was pretty special that we got to be there for his birthday get-together!  

I'm also happy that we were able to fix (renovate) Mom and Gene's bathroom while we were out there.  It was a disaster for over a year, but not anymore.  Mark did a fantastic job and worked quite hard!  It really looks nice now!  It took a little pushing to get Mom moving on it, but we managed to get it done in a week.

Christmas is just 5 days away and we are really looking forward to having Sara, Zach, and Sophia stay with us a couple of nights.  We are bummed, though, that Holly, Erich, Zoe and Ezra aren't able to join us, too for the holiday this year.  :(

Mark and I are having West Coast grandchildren withdrawals so we've planned a trip to visit them in California the latter part of February.  We'll be there to celebrate Ezra's 5th birthday with him!!!  We plan to see Tommy and Mona in Merced for a couple of days, too.  And, we also hope to take in a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on our way back to Colorado.

Despite all the things planned on the horizon, I will try to be more timely with my blog entries...promise! ;)