Busy, busy, busy...

It's been a crazy few weeks. I'm sick (What?) at the moment so my brain is a little fuzzy, but I'll try to fill you in. Justin's Grandma passed away, which I think I already said, and I posted a picture of little Oliver in the last entry, add several family Christmas celebrations/dramas, a handful of doctor visits for me and the kids, our basement flooded with every drop of water from our well by freak chance, van windshield got smashed, dog chewed all the hair off his paw for some reason, studio track lighting mysteriously went on fire, business meetings to finalize our hostile takeover of the South Royalton House. Just kidding about the hostile part. It's hopefully going to be a wonderful thing for us. But speaking of hostile, I was terrified to learn that Marc was on that plane back from Amsterdam last week. Thank goodness he's safe. We DID have a great Christmas though. I was all upset for a bit because the thing the boys wanted the most, a huge wooden castle with drawbridges, dungeons, knights and dragons, etc, arrived from the company two days before Christmas and when I opened it, it was the wrong one. A hot pink, princess castle, with unicorns and canopy beds. Not that we have anything against hot pink or unicorns around here, but still... So I was grumped out that I couldn't return it and get a replacement in time, AND it was insanely expensive. Later that afternoon, I popped into a thrift store to see if they had any kids snow boots (after I ditched the last pair we bought for Eli because they had a dead rat inside.) and I literally stumbled over the same wooden castle that I ordered, in perfect condition for FIVE BUCKS! So see, sometimes I am pretty lucky! The other awesome thing is: we ran out of wood COMPLETELY yesterday, like Justin had started chopping up random woodworking projects in the basement to burn, and the Wood Guy, who is totally unreliable and never even delivered the wood we ordered LAST winter, pulled in with a load of wood and dumped it in our yard. Also, I went to the hospital yesterday for surgery to remove a cyst that has kept me on antibiotics for a few weeks. (That's right, I talk about icky things you don't need to hear. Over-sharers Anonymous, here I come.) When I got there, the doctor said it looked like it had shrunk and surgery was no longer necessary. She'll check again in a week, but yay! Anyhow, so that's the good and the bad from the last couple weeks. Looking forward to one more family gathering in Amherst this weekend. Hope everyone else had a fabulous holiday! Love, me