Christmas

This Christmas has been a special one in many ways. So much to share.....

I will begin with December 13th. That was the day my brother Marty and his two boys, Kyle and Kory, flew in from Washington to be here for 3 weeks. I had been looking forward to this day for months and was so thankful to know that Marty was able to join us for Christmas. Back in January he was diagnosed with leukemia and had been on chemo for about nine months. Then when they tested his bone marrow after all his chemo, the Dr's could not find any trace of cancer! We praise God for His grace and healing!

December 17th my brother Steve and his new wife, Myrna, flew in from Washington to be here as well on Christmas. This was our first time meeting Myrna. She is a sweet gal and we are thankful to have her as part of our family. Steve and Myrna had some news for all us......they are expecting a child in August! Wow!! So we have yet another nephew or niece on the way (Phil and Audrey are expecting baby #2 in July).

December 19th I took Marty out on a date. We went to see Michael W. Smith Christmas concert. It was so good and we enjoyed every minute of it. I know Marty loved it, he sat there with tears in his eyes....reminded how God has worked in mighty ways through him and for him this past year.

December 20th Marty's wife, Linda, flew in to join us. Linda had never met Audrey so that was a first for them. In fact, this was a first for Marty, Linda, Steve and Myrna to meet Hannah (Phil and Audrey's girl), Kaitlyn (Tim and Tanya's) and Carly. It's been amazing to see how our family continues to grow.

Christmas Eve Eve, we met up with Erik's sister, Julie, and family who also were in town staying with her in-laws. We had a great dinner and then went to our church for a service. This was their first time meeting Carly. It was cute to see all the boys around Carly.

Christmas Eve we surprised my mom and dad by having all of us kids attend their church for Christmas Eve service. My mom cried when she saw all 19 of us walk through the church doors. That was a great surprise and wonderful gift for my mom....to have all her kids together in church.

Christmas Day! What a day! This is the first time in eleven years that all of us kids have been together for Christmas! We started our day with just our family (the five of us) opening gifts in the morning and having a yummy breakfast. We then headed over to Tim and Tanya's for a fun-filled day! It's been a tradition for over 20 years, to draw names in our family. We don't share who's name we drew and we write that person a poem. On Christmas day we sit in a circle and take turns reading our poems from that person. We can not open our gift, from that person, until we guess who the poem is from. We are not a very poetic bunch at all, so as you can imagine, this gets real funny to hear each poem. We also played the white elephant game. But the high light of the day was when the guys, and Kailey, all jumped into the pool.....an unheated pool. The water temp is usually in the upper 40's but this year they got off pretty easy and the temp was 51.

Although the games are fun, I am so thankful for time spent with family. I am thankful for Carly...what a precious gift she has been to us. I'm most thankful for the best gift of all, and that is God's gift to us, sending His Son for us because He loves us!

I took a lot of pictures over the last two weeks so I will post those soon. Enjoy!