Happy New Year!

To our family and friends ...

Hope you all had a Blessed Christmas!
 Wishing you a great 2014!

Finally had the whole gang together on Christmas Day
to get our group shot!

So blessed with our 4 adult kids!!!

This year has been full of changes
but we're thankful and looking
forward to the coming year!!!

If you want to know more about our crazy year -
read on to my next entry :)

Thank you for all the Christmas wishes sent our way!
Much love to each of you from all of us!!

2013 - What a year!!!

Wow...so much has happened this year!

It hasn't been an easy one,  
but it's good to remember all the great things -
as we're dealing with the difficult ones!
We are blessed!

Just a few of the highlights:

 

March 2013!!
5 Grandbabies ... 4, 3, 2, 1, 0  :)
 #6 is due in May!
(Thanks Deb and Jonah)

 Great Gramma Guyer came to visit April 4-10th!!!
So much fun to be with Mom and her 5 great grands!

Special Times - 4 Generations on a Couch!

Pics!

With Beka in Boston, April 15, 2013 was a tough day.

She lives 1/2 mile up Boylston St. from where there bombings were.

Thankfully she was safe in her apartment!!

The following hours and days were filled with texts and calls! 

The night of the lockdown, Beka created this video 

using photos she'd taken of Boston

and a recording her Cab'ret group made the day after the bombings.

This was how she dealt with those difficult days ... 

Beautiful photos! Beautiful singing!

I worked for Hallmark until the end of April 

until a cut in hours made it not worth continuing :)

The beginning of May we made a trip to LA 

to move James back to AZ! 

Tim was given a layoff notice on May 9th after almost 25 years at Boeing

 ... His last day would be July 19th!!! 

Oh boy!!! We'd never had to deal with this before!

Job hunting began!

Mary Pat, my high school buddy, came to visit in June.

We went up to lovely Sedona and enjoyed a great trip to the 

Grand Canyon ... felt like high schoolers!

Beka was home from May 13th - June 18th.

Great times together pics!

She returned to Boston so she could get to 

New Hampshire for a 6 week job performing

at Interlakes Summer Theater as 

Cosette in "Les Miserables" and Philia in
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"!

I met Annette in Boston July 26th, drove to Meredith, NH

and spent 4 great days together exploring the countryside and 

seeing both of  Beka's shows!

Then we spent a couple days seeing the sights in Boston!  

Great memories! 

 

We flew together to Ohio, where Lisa joined us in celebrating our dear 

mother's 82nd Birthday on Aug 3rd at the Pioneer Mill in Tiffin, Ohio!!

Annette and I went to the Lakota High School Reunion...

So fun to re-connected with dear friends,

Chris and Anna,  that I hadn't seen in 40+ yrs!

None of us had changed a bit! ;)

I got to go to my  first Fremont St. Joe's High School Reunion!!
40 years!!!  Such a great time with old friends!!
None of US had changed a bit, either!!!

 Carrie and the boys drove over from Maryland.
We enjoyed hanging out together!
... even took the ferry over to Put-in-Bay!

While at mom's I scanned old family photos from 1954-1970
and uploaded them to an Album on-line for all to see!!!
There are hundreds more to do...but that's another Ohio trip!

Then  back to Boston to help Beka  get ready for her Senior year!  

We shopped, stocked up, cleaned and organized her apartment!  

We rewarded ourselves with a day trip to NYC! 

We took an early morning MegaBus and got to NYC by 11am!  

We spent the day running around and seeing the sights before

catching a 1 am bus back to Boston. I had never been there

so it was such a treat!  So with basically no

sleep I flew home the next day! Quite a trip!

 I was home for 11 days before Tim and I left for

Ferndale, CA on August 29th!

My brother Tom has a place he's working on...

and offered us a job helping and we were both free to GO!!

What a great time of work and fun!

 The crew hard at work!

  Before!             -  Tom's place -                  After!

Check out these Pics of all we did! 

 We ended up staying for 8 weeks...
Just a great time of working, meeting people
and seeing the sights together!

We enjoyed the 18 hour drive to get there and back,

stopping at some special spots along the way!!!

We were able to see Tim's sister, Melanie,

and daughter Kristin's family in Modesto, CA!

Wonderful to re-connect!

We were married in San Leandro, CA on Sept 16, 1978,

and it's been a dream of mine to be on the CA coast 

for our 35th Anniversary!

Not quite how I'd planned but

we were actually there!!!

On our trip home we took a trip down memory lane -
visiting many of our favorite spots and old homes!

 

So blessed to spend a night with our dear friends,

Steve and Gayle (an early morning shot)!!!

Pics of our CA adventures here!

We got home on Oct 25th!

Deb and Jonah needed a place to live after they sold their home
before they could get into their new one, so
they were able to stay in our house while we were gone.
Such amazing timing!!!  We overlapped just a week

 and moved them to their new home Nov 3rd.
Fun Fall Pics!

 I HAD to go back to Boston Nov 21-28
to see Beka perform again
and Mom joined me for 4 of those days!!!

She was such a trooper...
taking the subway in the cold to see
  Beka's cabaret show at the Hebrew Senior Life Center

 and as Clara in "The Light in the Piazza" !
A very special trip!

I also got to re-connect with my friends, Mary Lynn and Gail,

who each joined me for shows!! 

Beka graduates in May, 

so not many more Boston opportunities!

I got home in time to prepare for Christmas and

Beka being home Dec 20th - Jan 1st!

Great having everyone together for the holidays!! 

We're very thankful that Tim started a technician job on Dec. 16th!!!
 We aren't ready for retirement, so I will be looking for work as well!

Excited to see what's ahead ...
Just hope it's not AS crazy!
Trusting God with the future :)