Merry Christmas 2014

Reflecting on Christmas, I am forever grateful for the birth and life of Christ. His life provides me with hope, strength, courage, and reason to continue on daily. He lives today and I am thankful. This Christmas has been one filled with mixed emotions for me. Not too long ago we found that Michael and his family would be moving to Michigan, however, we had anticipated that it would be next Spring. However, he found out that they would be leaving right after Christmas. One of the reasons there are mixed feelings is because we left on the 20th to visit Jake's family in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, so that meant that when we pulled away, I had to say good bye to Michael's family. They will have moved by the time we get home. The kids did exceptionally well on the trip. We had let them open gifts the week before we left so they could play with them and we could travel lighter. It helped that they had a couple new small things to play with on the trip that were still new. On a side note, I am glad to see Jake enjoy his family. It is not always easy for me because I do not always feel apart of the family by certain individuals but I would not take this opportunity away from Jake or our children. There are times where I think it is because they do not know me well (but we have been married 13 years). I hope one day that they enjoy me and am glad I'm there. The kids are also having a great time and enjoying the snow. They have been sledding and ice skating. We also took them to the space museum in almagordo, NM. Several fun memories were made. Jake said his favorite part was chatting with his dad the night before we left. On the way home we went to Carlsbad Caverns and told the kids of our engagement there.