Last Post of 2013

2013 has been pretty great to our family. Both Ellie and Nick are doing great in school. Ellie got involved in sports this year and loved volleyball and basketball. She had her poem chosen to advance to the next level of competition and hopefully will end up at the state level. I love hearing the music floating down the stairs from her room. She is learning to play the keyboard and is also creating new songs and music. Nick has blossomed with help from the speech therapist at school. So many people have mentioned that he has come out of his shell but I think it is just that you can hear him now that he has slowed his speech down. He has spent the past few days videotaping on his ipod. He has taped his train layouts, lego sets, holiday lights...he is very excited about it. Rob is thriving at work. He was humbled by comments made to him at holiday parties. I have had a couple great doctor visits this year, all ending with no evidence of disease and get busy living. It has been an awesome 4th quarter on ebay. I have coined the title Resale Concierge, it sounds better than telling people I flip on ebay. Very cool sale yesterday, I had a Lillehammer winter Olympics tie and it sold to one of the USA coaches...I will be watching for him to wear it. 

Friday we started off the morning baking again. Ellie was thrilled to use her cupcake maker again. She made carrot cake muffins with cream cheese frosting. We took some with us when we went to visit Eric and Pam. We had a wonderful visit with them. I wish we could see them more often than we do. We did a bit of thrifting on our way up to the Cuneo Light show. I found a huge lot of art supplies at the one store. Taking it apart - I think I should be able to recoup my cost just on the stamp pads alone. I have scrapbooking pens, calligraphy sets, rulers and other tools, pencil lead, paper. We had dinner at Portillos and then waited in a slow moving line for the light show. It was a bunch of fun, like it always is. The kids looked for the snowmen and counted them. They changed things up this year and it seemed even better. 

Saturday morning Mom and Dad took Ellie and Nick out shopping for the day. Rob and I took advantage and went out for lunch. We headed north and did a bit of thrifting...for ourselves. I found some great sheet sets for the cottage.We were able to get a couple things at Hobo, too. I couldn't resist running into Salvation on the way home and was soooo glad I did. I found a couple more of the scrapbook items and 2 Hermes neckties. Mom and Dad came in and stayed for dinner when they dropped off the kids. We had appetizers and salad and fruit. We worked on the puzzle but this puzzle was sort of ridiculous with the piece shapes. We still had about 100 pieces to go when they left. I finished it up around 12:15 this morning. After Rob went up last night, I went to refill my water and found my foot stepped into wetness. I thought it was just a spill from the sink but learned the entire cabinet under the sink was wet. I dragged out all the containers and bottles and wiped it dry. I tried to investigate where it was coming from but couldn't. 

Rob and I began our morning researching faucets. Ellie agreed to watch Nick so Rob and I could run out and try to find one we liked. We originally were going to replace the faucet and the sink itself because it has quite a few dents but we soon found out black sinks are what is stocked now and white is custom order. We ended up just getting a new faucet. We came home and the kids were making bouncy balls with a craft kit Nick got for Christmas. Rob put in the new faucet - looks great. We started a new puzzle - equally as challenging because it is shaped like a train, with all the bells and whistles. Rob stayed home to watch the Bears game when we went to Mom and Dad's for dinner. Mom made an enchilada casserole that was good. She also roasted baby potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes. We had cookies for dessert. Dad played trains with Nick while Mom and Ellie made some spa bath salts. 

Hoping to make 2014 even better than this year has been. Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree