Just Like That, the Year is Over

 Well, good-bye 2021!

I feel like I lost a year or two because of all the covid issues that have come up.   We have been wearing masks and avoiding people for nearly two years now.  It is crazy to think that in 2020 the world shut down and just never really went back to normal.  This is our new normal.  Here in New Mexico we are under a mask mandate that has never ended.  Our brains are mush.  I feel like any extra stress I feel is over whelming.  I am sad to say good bye to 2021 but I am also ready for fun new adventures of 2022.  

Craig and Blair came Christmas Day to hang out with us for a few weeks.  We really didn't do anything special.  We just hung out and played games every day.  Stephen took a few days off and we finished up my floating shelves project that has been ongoing for months now.  I still have to do the finishing touches on the project but for now, it is done. 

Stephen and I are running a marathon/half marathon January 16th, so we have been running a lot of miles in December.  This year I hit 500 miles!  That is the most miles I have ever ran in a year.  It was a huge milestone for me.  

New years eve I sang with Opera Southwest and then came home, celebrated with the boys and the hoped in bed.  It was perfect.  

Happy New Year!

Christmas

 It's Christmas!  Hurray!

We are so happy to have two full weeks off from our busy lives.  It feels so good to just hang out together as a family.  I always hope to slow our lives down a bit, but it seems to hit warp speed when I am not paying attention.  

We had a very low key Christmas this year.  We waited until 10:00 to open presents.  We didn't get a lot of stuff this year because it just didn't feel right.  The boys didn't really want anything at all.  They just wanted money for their online games.  So that is what they got.  We had dinner with my parents and played games.  Such a nice relaxing day remembering the Saviors birth.

A Christmas Card

 

Random Christmas Stuff

 Edward's arts class held an art show and it was so awesome.  We went to see the art, and then did an escape room!  This was the boys first escape room. It was so fun.  They loved searching for clues all through out the escape room.  We solved it with about 15 minutes left.  Then we got REAL cookies for solving the "Great Christmas Cookie Caper".

We put up the Christmas tree and it looks amazing in our new home!!  The boys loved putting up all of our ornaments from the past years. 

I am singing with Opera Southwest this New Years Eve and have been  loving getting dressed up and singing again!  This is the dress I bought to wear for the evening. 

Nolen had been practicing hard for the Christmas sacrament meeting.  The day of, he felt really sick and ended up going to the ER because he had a terrible stomach ache.  He ended up just being dehydrated but he missed playing his cello for Christmas. 

For the past few months, I have been working on putting floating shelves up in my home.  I had purchased the rods to hang the shelves, then found the wood, then started working on hanging them up back in October.  Well the original wood I bought was too thin, so I had to find 4 inch thick wood.  Impossible during covid times!!  I called 20 places around the United States before I found a company here in New Mexico that would but the wood I wanted from a tree! It was awesome.  I picked up the wood and then realized it was in a rough state.  The boys and my dad spent hours sanding the wood and cutting it to size.  It has been a true labor of love!