Feeling just blah

I have been feeling seriously blah this past week or so. The weather has gotten incredibly warmer, from the teens to the upper 40's, which is awesome, but I can't shake the yucky feeling of exhaustion and just blah. I have been trying hard to get motivated to do anything besides sitting on the couch with some knitting or crochet. I get the kids into bed and just want to be an enormous couch potato. I have got to shake this soon or I'll be tempted to stay in bed and not get up.

We are really busy this next few months with activities for the kids, school for Mark, and the many church activities I am engaged and involved with. They are all great things, but it can wear me down too. So hopefully I'll have a picture or two to post soon. I don't think I've touched my camera in over a week. I did take a few pictures of Liam's room with his big boy bed. No more crib in the Meadows' house at all!

Triple R Ranch Reunion - 300th Post

Mark and I found some low ropes activities in the woods and I thought the giant see-saw was cool!

I was especially excited to see that the fish bench was still in front of the lodge!

I had an incredible opportunity to re-visit my summer camp this past weekend. I was a camper at Triple R Ranch for 7 years and I was on barn staff as a junior and then senior staffer for 4 years. I hadn't been back to camp since 2001, when we went back for a funeral, and I was thrilled to be able to get back for an alumni reunion. It was just unbelievable to step back in time and relive some of my fondest memories. I felt like I was coming home again. I can't adequately express how much I loved being there and how awesome it was to see it again, and to see the exciting changes that are being made.

Triple R was an amazing place for me. It wasn't just a place to ride horses, experience nature, swim, hike, etc. It was a place where I experienced Jesus Christ. I saw people living for Him, worshiping Him, working hard to create a place where campers could have a ton of fun, but the priority was always to "know Christ and to make Him known." I am so pleased that campers are still coming there and walking away with a stronger relationship with Jesus. How awesome to know that new memories are being created, and that although buildings might change and programming might shift, as a new generation comes to camp, young people are getting a chance to know Jesus and to see firsthand people living for Him. It's awesome. I hope to be able to attend future reunions and to maybe one day send my own children there to camp.

Christmas 2009

family pic taken by my mother-in-law (it's a good one and we're all coordinated!)

Christmas was a very busy time for us, but a blessing too. We spent Christmas Eve at church. We helped decorate the fellowship hall and put some table decorations together for the Christmas day dinner. We went back for the 4:30 service and then worked in the nursery during the 7:30 service. It was a busy day, but a wonderful day. We also squeezed in time for ice cream cake to celebrate my birthday! We got to bed so late that night and were thrilled that the kids slept until 8:30 the next day! We opened presents and ate an enormous breakfast and then left to go to Fredericksburg for a Meadows family dinner.

Dinner was delicious and time with the family was precious. The children did a program for us and then there were more gifts to open. Then we went back to the family farm and opened gifts with Mark's immediate family. We do family/ homemade gifts. It's always fun to see how creative everyone is. The cousins get along so well and they play beautifully together. They played so hard all weekend that we barely saw them! We also spent some time with Mark's grandmother. She had some gifts for the kids and she let them choose treasures from her curio cabinet. They were so excited to choose whatever they wanted!

Coming home has been nice too. We've had a few days of sleeping in late, waking up and playing with new toys, watching some new movies, eating meals together, running a few errands, etc. There is no pattern to the day, just lots of poking around! We woke today to a dusting of snow, about 1.5 inches, and so it's a jammies day!

Gingerbread Houses - Round 2

Liam's preschool class invited the older siblings to come to the class this week to decorate small gingerbread houses. The teacher had hot glued graham crackers together in the shape of a house and had all kinds of candy for decorating them. They loved decorating their very own houses! They also really enjoyed eating cookies and other goodies afterward!

More Christmas Fun - Mrs. Claus Tea

We had tea with Mrs. Claus this week. It was a very sweet and special event for the children. She read several holiday books and then everyone had the chance to sample delicious cookies and drink hot chocolate. The adults enjoyed a holiday tea blend. Mrs. Claus answered all of the children's questions about her famous husband and told them that she had to fly back home to help him prepare for Christmas day! Peyton and Liam really enjoyed the stories and cookies. There was one story about a little girl who received a steamroller for Christmas and we all really liked it.

Gingerbread Houses!

Peyton really wanted to make a gingerbread house this year

The snow from the "Blizzard!" We were so glad our neighbor plowed our driveway for us!

I cannot believe Christmas is in 2 days! I am so not feeling festive this year. I cut down on the amount of stuff I baked this year and didn't have much pressure to have to go buy gifts. We ended up making a lot of our gifts this year. But for some reason, I just don't feel excited about it at all. I am hoping tomorrow will be a great day to help me get fired up! We are going to church in the morning to decorate for the community Christmas meal and then we'll attend the 4:30 service and help in the nursery at the 7:30 service. We're eating both meals out tomorrow too!

Peyton saw the gingerbread house kit at Target on Tuesday and asked if we could buy it. They had a great time decorating it. Liam had help with his icing, but Peyton did her own icing and decor! It is quite a house and looks very festive sitting on the counter. They also decorated little houses, made of graham crackers, at Liam's preschool today. I'll post pictures of those later. The preschool class hosted the big and littler brothers and sisters and all the kids got to decorate a house. Plus there were loads of cookies to eat. We also had tea with Mrs. Claus today, which was a special treat. I'll post that as well, later. Gotta run and get the laundry done before it's too late!

Blizzard 2009

We traveled to Richmond over the weekend, during the "Blizzard of 2009", to spend an early Christmas with my family. We left Friday afternoon just as the first flakes started to fall. It hit hard and fast and about 40 miles outside of town we thought about turning back, but decided we were committed and kept going. The trip was fairly harrowing. The snow was covering the roads fast and there were a lot of cars traveling. We made pretty slow progress and about 15 miles before our exit to Richmond, we had an accident. The car beside us started to slide and came into our lane right in front of us. Mark kept his cool as we bumped her, and then she kept going into the guardrail and we stopped on the shoulder. We exchanged information and had contacted the state police, but after 15 minutes or so we decided to keep going. We had no food or water in the car and the snow was falling very fast. As we turned onto the street that leads to my brother's house, the police called my cell phone and said they were trying to get to us, but that troopers had to keep stopping for other accidents! We told them we were okay and that the other driver had decided to stay and wait for her parents to come get her, but that we had made sure she was okay with us leaving.

We had a quick dinner with my brother, dropped our dog at his house, and then drove to mom's house. The drive to her house was incredibly slow going and we saw about 10 cars abandoned on the sides of the road. There were 6 cars on the exit ramp as we got off the interstate to go to the house! A trooper was there with a flashlight looking overwhelmed. I was so happy to finally be there, safe and sound. What normally is about a 2 hour trip took 3.5 hours! In hindsight it was pretty stupid for us to go. We should have stayed home, but we did enjoy the weekend. We opened gifts on Saturday and played in the snow. Then on Sunday we went to the mall for the annual Santa picture.

Going home Sunday wasn't too bad. The interstates we had to take were fairly clear, but we couldn't believe all of the cars on the road. The plows had plowed up to their roofs! I can't imagine how busy tow trucks are going to be digging out all of the cars left behind! We are expecting freezing rain this week and if there is even a hint of nasty weather, we are not traveling on Christmas Day! I told Mark I'd rather stay home and eat leftovers than put our family at risk!