Comp Time, Go Time

 It's a busy time of year. Then again, I'm not not sure it's ever not a busy time. Jeremy is slammed at work because they are down two attorneys. I am gearing up at work for the high-need spring season and trying to hold our life together with all the everyone has going on.

Speaking of everything everyone has going on, Merrick is keeping himself very busy these days. We are in the heart of basketball season. He has 5-6 practices and games a week and is also reffing on the weekends. Because that isn't enough, this weekend he also decided to coach a sophomore rec basketball team with some of his friends.

For CC, we are officially in dance competition season. She had a comp yesterday and spent most of the day in Salem. While we love watching her and her team dance, Jeremy is not sure about the return on investment of time. We were gone for 6 hours yesterday to see her dance for two minutes. It was a really good two minutes though. This week we also got to watch her perform at half time of the girls varsity team. Please enjoy some very graining photos of her from that performance as well as a photo of her team from the comp.

Poor Elsie gets dragged along to most things, but also insists on having play dates almost everyday after school as well. We have definitely become the hang out house for her neighborhood friends.

We somehow are making it all work. Now, if I could just get everyone in the house fully healthy, I think that would make things a lot easier. Unless there are more surprises waiting, I think we are almost there.

Welcome 2026

 We are about a week and a half into 2026 and so far 2026 has been a friend. The kids went back to school on Tuesday, well at least for a day. Merrick got progressively sicker over the day on Tuesday and then ended up being home sick for several days. Jeremy took him yesterday to get an IV and since he is feeling much better. He should be good to go for Monday. I have been fighting off the sickness too, but so far I'm more or less staying on top of it.

The big news of the week is that yesterday my dad was able to bust out of the skilled nursing facility. Having him there was a double edged sword. He was able to get therapy 6 days a week and made really great progress over his time there, but we missed having him home. I know he was not super comfortable there and it was hard on my mom having to go back and forth and sleep alone at the house.

11 days in, life in 2026 is far from perfect, but we are fighting back against sickness and everyone is home where  they belong. Peace out skilled nursing! 2026 is all about finding joy and there is definitely joy to be found.

Goodbye 2025

 Every year I do a wrap up post for the year before so that I have a good place to transition to a new book when moving my posts over to a blog book. I'm not sure I have ever been so happy to close the chapter on a year as I am with this one. Maybe that's not true. Covid was pretty bad, but 2025 was right up there in many ways. I'm not going to list here the parade of horribles that happened in 2025. You were here for the ride. Instead, I'll focus on the good from this past week because, as we head into 2026, I am focused on finding joy and making 2026 the best year yet.

We wrapped up 2025 with the Clifford's still in town. While we enjoyed lots of down time, we still partied, like we always do. We spent a day at the arcade. It turns out that $10/person goes a long way at a nickel arcade. I think everyone scored big at some point. Personally, my highlight was besting the claw machine. Jeremy would also want me to mention that he finally beat the ball drop game.

We also spent an afternoon at the movies. While I didn't take any pictures at the movies, I did capture the post movie candy tongue. That's one thing about Grandpa and Lollie being in town, there is no shortage of treats and candy.

In the end, we sent 2025 off in style with at 50th birthday party for our friend Troy.

Well, as you can see 2025 wasn't all bad. You just had to look for the joy, something I plan to do a lot more of in 2026.

Christmas 2025

Well, Christmas came. It was a rocky road right up to the bitter end, but it did eventually come. I thought once Tala's funeral was over we would be able to focus on Christmas, but what is the saying about when men make plans, God laughs? 

On Tuesday, I was at the store for the third time that day when I ran into Emily. She told me that she had been talking to my mom and that my dad hadn't been feeling well. I talked to my mom shortly thereafter, and by they time we hung up, I had convinced her to take my dad to urgent care. Unfortunately, that didn't go as planned, after two separate falls and being turned away from urgent care, we ended up calling 911 to help get my dad off the floor and my mom and I spent the next 10 hours (all night long) in the ER on a stool and a folding chair following a diagnosis of a UTI. After a VERY long night, my dad ended up being admitted to the hospital, where he would spend the next 2.5 days including Christmas. He was eventually transferred to a skilled nursing facility, where he is now, to rehab.

It was with that backdrop that Christmas finally arrived. The festivities began on Christmas Eve. We gathered with the Lundberg family despite missing Nana and Papa, despite the stress and exhaustion. We had pizza and Chinese, played games, and exchanged gifts. I had planned a game of Family Feud and to me that was the highlight of the night.

Then it was Christmas. Despite the incredibly un-Christmasy lead up, we locked in pretty well for Christmas morning. We had gifts for everyone, obviously, but the big surprise was that we have booked a Mexican Riviera cruise for Spring break. We had planned to tell them by hiding rubber ducks around the house, one of which said "We are going on a cruise to Mexico". First, I wrapped a duck for each of the kids under the tree. I planned to tell them that I had heard getting a duck for Christmas was good luck, a lucky duck, and then once all the presents had been opened, tell them that maybe the ducks meant something else and they should go look for more around the house. Unfortunately, with all that was going on, I accident labeled two ducks as being for CC and none for Elsie. With that, it turned out that the first two presents CC opened were both ducks. I think she though she was being punked.

After all the presents were opened, the ducks were found, and the big surprise was out, we set up the axe throwing and golf chipping set from Santa. We then settled in to finish Home Alone and for a Christmas nap.

Later in the day we went to the hospital to visit papa and then to the airport to pick up Grandpa, Lollie, and Jensen. We are mid Grandpa, Lollie, and Jensen visit. The highlight of the visit so far was our visit to a highland cow farm. It was CC's dream come true.