In case anyone is still checking...

HELLO and HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all! Hopefully this is the season where long blogging absences are excused. While traveling, I preferred to actually talk face to face with my friends and family, rather than blogging about how wonderful it is to talk to them face to face. Or maybe I was just lazy too. At any rate, I barely know where to begin. Seems like a year since I last posted and a lot of fun stuff was crammed into that time. I'll start off with a word to the wise... okay, I'm probably the only one um... ridiculous enough to come up with such creative ways of injuring myself, but can I just say that sitting on one foot while spending time on the computer might be hazardous to your health! I almost always sit on one foot while I'm online and frequently I don't realize how asleep I've let my foot get, until I stand up, and oh my. Such was the case this morning. I had determined to not blog until we were all unpacked. That planned has changed since... well, I'll just tell you the story. So this morning I was online for awhile and when I got up from the chair, my foot was very soundly sleeping. So I was trying to hobble out of the computer room, when I'm not even sure what happened exactly. I think I must have stepped on it sideways with a lot of force. I screamed out in pain, as I have not felt pain like that in some time. As the foot became more and more awake, it only hurt more and more. There's now sort of a bulge on the side and it hurts to walk on it, but I can hobble around - not exactly practical when one is wanting to unpack and run around all day. ahhh well, so here I sit at the computer - with both feet on the floor.

Let's see, Dave and I left about 3.5 weeks ago and had a great trip seeing a lot of friends and family. I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of the details I was going to bore you with. We headed up to Iowa the first night and were going to head to Minnesota the next day, but were delayed due to some nasty weather they were having. So we spent a nice day relaxing there. Dave mom introduced me to their neighborhood Goodwill and I became a die hard fan - you can get amazing stuff for very cheap. Goodwills definitely vary in quality, organization, and such, but this one is a real winner! So, the next day Dave and I drove to International Falls and then the next day we made our way up to Red Lake, stopping to explore the scenic ditches and by ways ... yeah, it was a long trip. We went in the ditch right after we got off the 502 (for the Canadians out there), with a truck driving right towards us and us definitely in his lane. We was able to swerve around us and we sailed nicely into the deep snow of the ditch. We then proceeded to have tea and crumpets with the sweetest lady which we waited (and waited and waited and waited) for the tow truck to arrive. I think she really enjoyed the company, actually. I was disappointed about getting to Red Lake later than planned, but it all was okay in the end. We were able to see Archchch..thur and Iris and their kids that evening, some good friends from Red Lake who I have not seen for years. Time in Red Lake always seems to fly by so fast. It was wonderful seeing all my family and friends there. My family had a get together at Stormer Lake since we have outgrown any of the houses that people have in Red Lake. When we were driving home from Stormer, we saw the most gorgeous sunset I've seen in ages. I've seen really nice ones here as well, but this one with all the snow and tall trees - it was magnificent. And sadly, my camera was elsewhere. Some highlights of Red Lake were the Christmas Eve service, Stormer Lake and getting together with family, seeing friends that I haven't seen in awhile and going from house to house visiting folks. I could easily deal without the frigid temperatures though. As I sit today in the 70 degrees and sunshine. The south has to have a few redeeming qualities, right? Anyway, from Red Lake we headed to International Falls and avoided all ditches. Dave however, the poor guy, got to experience me chocking to the point that I could barely breathe and was very loudly gagging and gasping for breath. This happens every once in a while and it's very terrifying. It's even more fun when it happens in the middle of nowhere on bad roads. Poor guy didn't know what to do with me, but it ended without any loss of oxygen to the brain. We spent 2 nights with my brother Sheldon and his family. We had a lot of fun playing games and Darla and I got to go for coffee while the guys did things like watch football. Then we headed to Iowa to spend almost a week with Dave's family. That was so nice and relaxing. So many differences pop up when visiting our respective families with one of us the oldest child and the other the youngest. For instance, staying with my sister and her family - we have 4 handy dandy little alarm clocks to wake us up every morning. At Dave's place, oh my, it was SO quiet. = ) Yes, we slept in way too late on several occasions. It was fun to relax, play games, play with their new Wii, etc. = ) There are 2 games in which I can soundly beat Dave - the rest, I'm pretty bad. One is bowling and the other is a mindless, brainless, shoot anything that moves type game. I hope there's not a deeper meaning there. I don't think so. Anyhoo, from Iowa, we headed to Warsaw for a couple days. Again, it did not seem long enough and I felt like I could spend a couple weeks there. It was SO good to be back there and reconnect with some friends. Dave had a couple good math books and some videos so he was fine with me playing with my friends as much as I wanted and it was so wonderful. Yesterday we left Warsaw and spent an obscene number of hours in a VERY overstuffed car. Oh my - we had been accumulating stuff everywhere we went and by the end of the trip, we were quite loaded down. We got in last night around 10 and yeah, back "home." Although driving into Warsaw felt a lot like driving home as well. And then there's Red Lake which will always be home. So I'm confused. The house was okay except for a dead cockroach and some really odd, very tiny, tad pole like things swimming in one of the toilets. I was thoroughly disgusted but once I flushed it and sprayed bug spray, the problem has seemed to be solved. I shouldn't admit that to anyone planning on coming to see us any time soon. Alrighty, well, I should hobble out to the living room and see about sorting through a bunch of our stuff. Happy New Year once again.