What a fun year 2013 has been!
We traveled a LOT the first half of this year. In February, we traveled to Wisconsin (33 straight driving hours in a minivan with 4 kids!) to be with my family and celebrate the life of my grandfather, who passed away. In April, I took our little crew on our first trip without Mark. We went to Washington to stay with some close family friends, and it was a wonderful time of reconnecting.
Of course, the highlight of our year was the arrival of our new little guy, Micah, at the end of May. We were also blessed to be able to take a quick family trip to Washington for his Bris right after he was born. In July, my mom and sister came to visit for a week, and we had a blast celebrating summer together.
After that, things slowed down a bit around here as we settled into another school year and a fall of birthdays and holidays. We have (so far) taken a year-round approach to school, which frees us up to take more breaks during the year and have frequent days off. School has gone well this year, although having an infant definitely makes everything a bit trickier! We’ve also begun attending church again, and are excited about getting involved with our new community.
At the end of September, Eliza broke her leg, which has been an interesting experience for our family. She had to have surgery to put things back together and wasn’t walking for 2 months afterwards. Micah has been growing in leaps and bounds as well – he’s been our youngest teether (cut his first two teeth at 4 months) and crawler (crawling at 5 months!). Apparently he missed the memo that as the last baby in our family he is supposed to take his sweet time growing up! 🙂
This winter has gotten off to a fun start, with our little girl finally potty trained and our big girl finally walking again. We’ve also enjoed an earlier-than-normal first snow that has lasted on the ground for a few weeks now! We’ve had many days of snowplay and cocoa, and a couple of now-melting snowmen now add character to our backyard. Also, Mark and I have begun playing on the worship team at church. We are happy to be somewhere that we can help fill a need with the gifts God has given us.
We went to Colorado to celebrate a quiet but lovely Thanksgiving with my parents and youngest brother. It was nice to have a few days to relax there and get the holiday season kicked off! Thanksgiving was immediately followed by Hanukkah, after which we only had a couple more weeks before Christmas and family visits here in Idaho.
2013 has been a fun year of adapting to the many changes that the Lord has brought us. I don’t know what 2014 has in store for us, but I’m satisfied with knowing that we are held in the hands of a God whose love for us and plans for us far surpass our understanding!
Praying many blessings for you this upcoming year and always.
– Judy
