I am Filled with Gratitude

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was so nice to have Thanksgiving here in our new home. Gerry's sister and family came over and mom is now here for a month. I picked her up last week. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with how comfortable this house is for entertaining. It was wonderful and I am patting myself on the back for pulling off my first Thanksgiving dinner. We have been married 14 years and I have never had to make it. On the years we stay in Colorado I have always been assigned the veggie tray. No brainer there. On the years we are in Utah, I usually just help my mom with her cooking. So it was actually quite fun for me to get in there and and have a nice dinner at home.
I have so much to be thankful for this year. Our health, family, good friends, nice home and just a great feeling of peace. As I sit here thinking about my boys, I am overcome with emotion. I love them so much and they seem to be growing up so much daily. Some days I feat they don't know how much I love them as life gets cruising along so fast that we need to learn to take pleasure in the simple moments. They are my life and I don't know what I'd do without them. Gerry is the most patient, loving husband anyone could ever want and I am so incredibly blessed to be married to him.
Tonight we put up the Christmas tree and it looks amazing! I'll see if I can take some pictures tomorrow. Next week Nickie is coming to help me decorate the banister and make bows. I think mom is enjoying her stay here. I do think she gets a tad bit bored as she lives in the fast paced city and life is a bit more leisurely here.

Today Marks 19 Months of Waiting for a Baby Girl Referral

Today marks 19 months of waiting for referral of a baby girl. I can't believe how long it is taking. When we first started this process we thought it would be around 6-9 months. There's got to be a baby girl for us soon!
Both Gerry and I woke up today sick. We were in so much pain that we went to Instacare as it's the only place open on Sunday. Gerry has a raging ear infection and I have strep throat. Fun for us! I'm just glad it held out until today as we have been working so hard to get our old home on the market. Yesterday it was listed. What a relief!
I feel like I live in a whirlwind lately. Tonight we need to haul all our furniture in the main room into the garage. We are having the wood floor finished as the previous owners never did it. The wood floor guy can only work in the evenings so the great room will be blocked off for a week. I pick up my mom next weekend and bring her back her for a month, so we are trying to get the house ready for the holidays.
In the downstairs room where she will be staying, I peeled off the ugly wallpaper and underneath the drywall was never textured. Luckily I got someone in here yesterday to do that. Now I need to get that room painted so we can get it ready for her. We feel so blessed to be in this house, but I am ready for a long rest.

Very Thankful for Boy Scouts Today

Wow, what a night! We are trying to get our old house listed on Friday and we still had the unsurmountable task of moving the entire food storage room. We have a ton of food storage. I spent the entire day moving as many canned goods and stuff out of the room as possible to make it easier to move tonight.
The boy scouts did a service project for our family and moved our food storage. We had a line from the basement room up the stairs and outside to the four-wheeler trailer. They worked like animals. It was so amazing. We had a half trailer full of 6 gallon buckets alone. I could not believe how fast it went. We ended up loading up the whole trailer.
Then we all loaded up and drove to the root celler at our new house. We backed in the trailer, opened the doors and lined up in a chain again and unloaded the whole thing in 10 minutes. Wow! If my family had to do this alone I think it would have taken us an entire week of working every evening. What a blessing this was for my family. They all earned the barbeque we are going to do for them!

Jeremiah Made the Front Page of the Paper

This is my son Jeremiah walking with the color guard at yesterday's Veteran Day assembly at his school. This picture made the front page of the Vail Daily newspaper. Yesterday's program was one of the best Veteran's Day programs I have seen. Jeremiah is a cub scout and it was an honor for him to walk beside the Iraq war veteran and the Vietnam nurse. The assembly honored local veterans and helped spread patriotism. The children were very quiet and reverent the whole time - a tremendous accomplishment for our school!

Walking with the color guard was a huge privilege for Jeremiah and has special meaning to our family. My father was a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam. After he returned from duty he became a Utah Highway Patrolman and later a helicopter pilot for them. He died in the line of duty when his helicopter crashed on a search and rescue mission. Today is a day we can thank our Veteran's for the selfless service they do and remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.