A Rekindling... Perhaps

I haven't posted to this blog in, well, a long damn time.  I have gotten all kinds of flack from my loving family members because I have abandoned Facebook and pretty much any social media kind of interaction.  I won't go into the logistics of these decisions, because those of you who remember how to dial a phone probably already know the whole story.  But, I feel like maybe I have enough energy to get the ol' blog up and running again.  I make no guarantees, written or expressed, however that the action will continue with any regularity what so ever.

I'm not even going to try and update the goings-on of the last few years here.  Again, those of you who really care to know those details already know most of the what went on anyway.  I guess since it is January, though, I could give a quick rundown (probably in reverse order because that's how my mind is going right now) of the highlights of 2012.

Christmas was good.  Santa came and delivered his usual cache of goodies.  Ate all my damn cookies and milk... 

 

But people were happy.  

Including me.

Immediately after these pictures were taken, we all came down with the bubonic plague.  I'm not even kidding.  So the rest of 2012, from Christmas morning +1 hour till oh, pretty much yesterday, we were pathetic and lousy.  Vincent decided to turn his plague into impetigo.  Let me just tell you all the fun we had with that.  I think I did as much laundry in two days as I did in all of 2012.  We literally celebrated the new year on the couch under electric blankets and straining to stay awake past 10:00.

I am training to run the Chicago Marathon in October.  Thanks Wendy.  What a great idea.  Wendy and Ricky and probably a few others are planning on doing it with me.  Or maybe I'm planning on doing it with them (?)  I've already begun my training, because not only do I intend to torture myself once, I thought it'd be a great idea to add to that torture a pre-marathon half marathon for the Indy 500 Festival.  I'm pretty proud of sticking to my training schedule right through the bubonic plague - yeah - I still don't really know what I'm thinking.  But I have some good shoes.  They better be good shoes, anyway, for what I paid for them.

Halloween went off without a hitch. We claimed big dividends in Hobart.

 Vincent turned 10.  Jade turned 7.

Cakes were graciously supplies by Mrs. Rayner.  Thank you for saving me the embarrassment of making my own.

The boys did some hunting and made me nervous putting up a tree stand.  Saw a few deer, but didn't shoot any.

Everyone had a good season in Pop-Warner.  There were no major injuries and they both really liked it.  Going to the games was fun.  I don't think there was one, though, that we actually had normal weather for.  It was either blazing hot, freezing cold, or raining.  Gotta love Northwest Indiana.  The boys only lost a game or two, so that success was good for you-know-who.  KV's loaded nachos were a highlight, too.

We visited Wendy, Chris, and the kids in Virginia.  I guess I'm back tracking there.  We had Thanksgiving dinner with her and her family and it was great.  That's where I got the hair brained idea that it was a good idea to run 26.2 miles at once...

At some point we acquired a new horse.  In a nutshell, the people that had her were, um, "high energy" let's say and she is a "high energy" (read: borderline crazy) horse.  Their energies multiplied themselves into nothing short of an equine disaster.  She was free.  And she's pretty.  She makes good company for Harley and isn't too bad to ride, as long as you remain the calm one.

   

Ricky and I took her trail riding and no one died so we might keep her.  We'll reassess the situation in the spring.

The cat had kittens.  We got a quick set pool.  My sister and the girls came to visit.  Vincent graduated from Culver's Junior Woodcraft camp.  We only got a few (2 I think) black eyes from baseball practice - learning the very important rule of keeping the mitt in front of the ball.  Ricky smoked meat and we ate till we were sick.  We went to Disneyworld in April.  That was fun.  I think most of you have seen those pictures.   The whole trip was kept a secret until we left for the airport. 

Grandma turned 89.  Wow.

 

 There was so much more.  I could probably sit here and type all day but I have things to do.  Looking onward to the coming year...

Vincent is going to play baseball and football again.  I got a new job.  Well.  Kind of.  I relocated to the Crimes Against Children unit and I feel like that's going to be a good move for me.  I guess there's no need to make forecasts.  I'll try my best to keep this updated on a semi-regular basis.  Hope you all come back - if I'm not getting hits to the blog I'm gonna quit :).  Again.

More to come...