It Happens

I know, I disappeared from blog-land again. Sorry. It happens.
Well, lots of things happened, actually.

First, a trip to NY happened.
I grew up in a little town in upstate New York. (As my friend Andrea says, it's the dairy cow and apple part of NY - not the city. Go check out her pics if you want a great glimpse!). It's the area where the leaves are amazing in autumn. Where there are miles and miles of farms and orchards and vineyards. Where I know the roads by heart.
Unfortunately, I came in December. When there are no leaves, the apples and grapes are gone and the roads are so covered with snow and ice that it doesn't matter that I know them so well - I'm driving white-knuckled anyway!
But fortunately, my favorite part of NY is still here - family I love and friends who have known me and loved me through a lot of years.
We came in time for Christmas. It was the first in four years that we were able to spend the day with our family here. When we were out in Seattle the tickets were so expensive that we couldn't come at actual Christmas time. But, we made it a tradition to come and celebrate with them the beginning of January each year. Having the visit to look forward to made it easier to be so far away for the holiday. And buying tickets that were about half the price made it possible to have presents! But this year, we drove (gotta love being closer!), so we could come for Christmas.
It was great to be here. Christmas dinner with family and the Christmas Eve service at church are two of my favorite traditions. It was so nice to be in on them again. At the service they had a live nativity, and Gabby spent the entire service begging anyone to take her back to the "COW!!" We visited him many times :)
Christmas-Eve-Day we got to see all Jordan's siblings and their families at the same time. 5 kids under the age of 5 and 3 dogs. Crazy, but great!
Christmas morning back at my parents house was lovely. We missed my sister and nephew in Seattle and my brother in Asia, but it was great none the less. The older girls are old enough now to have fun with the presents, and they were overwhelmed with all they were given!
Then after Christmas I got to spend a "girls night" with some friends I've known since I was like 8 years old. There's just nothing like that. We haven't always been able to stay close, and there are parts of eachother's life now that we don't know - but these people know me at my roots. It was great.

Once Christmas was done we thought things would normalize a little, but life hit little Esther hard. A time change, a cold, a first tooth working through, a growth spurt and totally new surroundings. All at the same time. I didn't sleep for two weeks! Seriously, it has taken me almost the whole visit to get her sleeping at night again. I walked around in an exhausted daze for weeks. But, we are seeing the light. Last night she slept 11 hours straight. Hallelujah!

And, on the 6th Jordan headed to Louisiana for JRTC (a pre-deployment training. Bleh.) He can't have his cellphone there, so I haven't heard from him other than a quick call he was able to sneak on someone's smuggled phone. He is there, he is good, he misses us. That's all I know! He will be back the end of the month.

So, that's why I haven't posted. I've been in that place where my life and mind and heart are so full, but I've been too tired to make coherant sense of it all. If I tried to write, I think it would come out all garbled and end up saying something that's not really what I meant at all.

Oh, and the other reason is that - I have no pictures! (And what's a mommy-blog without pictures, really?) I don't know how to download my pictures to this computer because I didn't bring the camera software and I don't have a card reader. Is there a way?? If not, I'll have a lot to share when I get back!!