Looking Back at December

December is always a CRAZY! Not only do we need to get ready for Christmas but we have 2 birthdays and an anniversary to celebrate too. This year for our 20th anniversary we decided instead of going somewhere special we used the money to buy us a new bedroom set. I love it, it is big, black and beautiful! We feel like we are staying in a hotel room every night, but that might be because of the big screen tv Mike thought was part of the set.

This year was a very big year for me, it is the year I turned into an old lady. Yes, I turned 40! I am really hoping that 40 is the new 30 as I have heard so many times. My family all conspired against me and threw me quite the suprise party. I had no clue, which is very unusual for me. It is very hard to put one by me because I can always tell when they are up to something - or was it a sign of my age? Who knows.

It was the 20th of December and Mike and I had just dropped Josie off at a friend's birthday party and I THOUGHT we were on our way to finish up some last minute Christmas shopping, when the call came. It was my oldest brother Bryce desperate for some help with my very old, grandmother suffering from demensia. He claimed she had taken all her clothes off and was sporting around in her 90 year old birthday suite. He asked me to please come since there was no other female around to help with his predicament. Well, I abliged thinking I had seen it before and thought it couldn't hurt to be reminded of what I had to look forward to in about 50 years. When I walked in the door Bryce was very eager to see me and greeted me with a cane, a shawl, glasses and a hat asking me to dress up since Grandma was expecting her sister it might be better to pretend I was her - and with the condition of her mind I could have pulled it off. But of course I refused and walked further into the house and into a room full of family yelling suprise! They pulled it off, I was very suprised and proud of everyone for being able to keep such a big secret! We had a nice breakfast and I was presented with a gift I probably deserved. It was an Dr. D. Crepit Over the Hill Survival Kit containing a Depends, a magnifiying glass, a laxative, some Ensure and some corn removers. It is nice to belong to a family with a great sense of humor!

We had a very nice Christmas - the only thing that could have made it better was to have had Ken with us. Everyone was very happy with what they had recieved and it snowed ALL day!

Grandma and Grandpa Powell came to visit and had a hard time leaving - due to the snow not the company! With all the snow we had to literally push them down the road. Which I think was fun for all my kids but not so much them.

We went to visit Grandmas Clark and Smith later on and had our turn at getting stuck. Or should I say the men got stuck - the girls in our family were too smart for that! Haha. Actually, after dropping the girls off, Mike, Jake and Josh were being good samaritans when they went to help a car that was stuck. After their good work was done, they went for a thrill ride in the snow and ran into a 4 foot snow drift.

2008 was full of many trials for us, but full of many great memories. Bring on 2009!