COUNTING MY BLESSINGS OF 2011

I love looking back at the year and seeing what was accomplished.

2011 was full of fun and joy, heartbreak and sadness, stress, a bit of the bizarre, and through it all, blessings.

In January, we celebrated the new year, I learned how to make non-dairy cheese, we celebrated mom's birthday, we took the boys sledding, we stayed the weekend at the Gescher lake house, took the boys to the bottom of Detroit Lake, celebrated Tom Selleck's birthday, and started putting in a new tub and, much to our delight, Jill and John got married.

In February, we had our second annual 14 Days of Love countdown to Valentine's Day. Some of my favorites this year were our Crush Party, when Lily got red lips and heart attacking. Deb and Kevin helped us tile our bathroom and the bathroom got mostly finished (it still isn't finished!), we made fun valentine's for school, we celebrated Grandpa Joan and Maddie's birthday and I had a weekend getaway with my Soul Sisters.

In March, Mustache March began (so sad for me), Derek and Stephanie had a birthday, our family was shocked to lose one of our family members to an untimely death, we went to see the house my mom lived in as a child and the remains of the Provo Tabernacle, Wil and Phylicia got married, we celebrated Landon's birthday, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day, I took a quilting class with my father, Steve surprised the boys with a visit and we celebrated Sarah's birthday.

In April, Stephanie and I did a U.S. and Scotland Here and There Photo Challenge, my parents moved, I took a two art classes, Larry and I avoided an accident but were run off the road, we celebrated Steve's birthday and my sister came home from Scotland, these were hand delivered and I took a flower design class.

In May, the wee ones made a backyard zipline, we had a hot dog potluck, took Lily to the coast for the first time, we took the boys to Eastern Oregon for Larry's birthday, celebrated Alivia's birthday and Landon had his first (and hopefully only) toothache.

In June, Lily met Captain, my man clan became bull frog hunters, my dad and I had another quilting class, participated in the Jeff Young Fun Run, saw my aunt and uncle on their mission, Landon graduated from Kindergarten, we had lots of outdoor summer fun, the boys invented the jump board of doom, we started working on our backyard deck and I transformed a picnic table.

In July, we went to the paddle boats, saw a diner dwelling monkey named Elvis, LongBoardLarry was in Concrete Wave's Reader's Choice Award in 4 categories, we took the older boys for a weekend trip to Southern Oregon to zipline and see the vortex, I took the wee ones to visit my brother in Seattle where we went to the zoo, played hide and seek and swam, I painted our shed door, we made a homemade slip and slide, my man clan got a little boat to help with bull frog hunting, we went to farmer's markets galore, Larry and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary, we took the boys to the beach and spent Independence Day with grandma and grandpa Joan.

In August, Larry and I went to Bend and saw Ben Harper in concert with Paul and Cassie, and we saw the Go-Go's in concert in Portland with Deb and Kevin. I took the boys headstone hunting, we took the man clan to a super cool Renaissance Faire in Washington and we met my second cousin, who is a magician.

In September, the LongBoardLarry mobile was loaded up with me, Lach and my parents. We drove to Arizona for 10 days, where we did a lot of sight seeing and some family history, including finding our family homestead and visiting Globe, where we found information about my third great-grandfather. We celebrated Lach's birthday, took the boys to the Field of Flags and celebrated Laird's birthday.
In October, I ran my first half-marathon, we had a lot of fun with autumn and Halloween celebrations, including carving pumpkins, eating a lot of theme food, taking the older boys to the Nightmare Factory, taking all the boys to a fun pumpkin patch and going trick or treating. I started taking screen printing classes and we celebrated the third year of the kidney transplant.

In November, Larry and I went whale watching with Stephanie in Anacortes, and Steve joined us on that weekend getaway. We celebrated Larry J's 16th birthday, celebrated Thanksgiving, started the 30 Days Until Christmas Countdown and we cut down our Christmas tree.

In December, we continued our Christmas Countdown, where we made gingerbread house, wrote letters to Santa, made snowflakes, made Christmas cookies and ate a lot of holiday food. We made ornaments and snowglobes and saw an incredible live nativity. We celebrated Grandma Joan's birthday, had an awesome Christmas Eve and Christmas day with our families, saw the Zoo Lights and Miriam came to help celebrate New Year's weekend.

I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to 2012 and what it has to offer.

Wishing you all the best for you and your family in 2012.