Welcome 2011!

Happy New Year Everyone and Welcome 2011! 2010 was a good year for us. We started the year out by running and getting in shape. We started a new diet called the "Food Lovers Fat Loss Program." This diet worked great for us. It actually taught us how to use food to our benefit and speed up our metabolism. Russell lost about 20 pounds and I lost about 15. We looked really good. I also started running and participated in a few 5 and 10k's. Russell and I also decided we would like to have another baby. I became pregnant in February and then miscarried at the end of March. This trial was definitely devastating to us especially me but it was also a blessing in that we learned to rely on each other and especially the Lord more. A few months later I became pregnant again with a baby boy that will soon join our family at the end of February. I decided we could no longer afford diapers so we potty trained Emily and she did great. She has been potty trained for almost a year now and this will be a great help when the new baby comes. Emily also started going to Nursery in 2010 and she absolutely loves every minute of it especially singing time. Russell was also very busy in 2010. He was constantly studying or working on clinicals or ride-a-longs for his Paramedic class. He graduated from his Paramedic class in August and then passed his practical and National Registry written test and became a full fledged Paramedic which has been one of his dreams for a long time. We also enjoyed our new four-wheelers by going on many camping and four-wheeling trips including our trip to Hole-In-The-Rock near Escalante, UT. Later in the year we moved from our home in Bloomington to a little house in the middle of town. We recently decided it was less expensive to buy our own home instead of renting so we found a great little house that we will be closing on January 6, 2011. I think that pretty much sums up 2010 and we are looking forward to 2011. Our lives are going to change dramatically over the next few months because we will become homeowners and have a new baby too. Because of these two things, hopefully our tax refund will be really good next year too!

Any way, we had a great New Year's Eve party at Terral's house this year. We all got together, had dinner and played games right up until the New Year. It was way too cold to go outside to the Twilight to Midnight celebration in town so we stayed inside. We played a riling game of Family Feud at our party. The teams we the In-Laws vs the Family. Of course the Family won 2 out of the 3 games and of course there were fights and yelling and joking around. It was very fun!! Just so you know, I still think eat and lick are the same thing and shoe and foot are not the same! (I guess you had to be there...)

When it got closer to midnight, we turned on the TV and found a rerun of the New York countdown and watched the ball drop.

All of the kids had a great time blowing their horns at midnight and for the 20 minutes after midnight. Finally we had to tell them to stop blowing the horns because we were all getting headaches. Clay even started chasing Jessica around the house trying to get the horn away from her which only added to her enthusiasm for blowing the horn. It was great.

You would think that with all the racket, no one would be able to sleep but Tyler slept right though the New Year celebration as well as all of the horn blowing afterward! He was tired I guess.

We all had a great time at the party and got stuffed by all of the good food and treats. I haven't made any New Year's resolutions for this year. I just want to get everything ready for our new house and baby so I have been too busy to think of anything yet.

Good luck with everyone this year and I hope all you achieve all of your resolutions.