Highlights from 2018

I hope all our readers enjoyed a beautiful Christmas. We sure did! The highlight was Skyping with the Sweetest Missionary Ever on Christmas Day. She truly has a missionary spirit of love and service. She would love to hear from you! I'll include her email addy at the end.

As we wrap up another year to embark on a new one, our hearts are filled with gratitude for all we've accomplished this year.

January-

In January, Marissa started her full time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was called to serve in the Cusco, Peru mission. She also turned 21.

I chose two words to guide me through this year- Trust and Faith. I've been trusting in my Heavenly Father to keep my baby girl safe in Peru. I'll talk about faith later in this post.

February-

In February, we visited Hardware Ranch to see the magnificent elk there. We also discovered some cool prairie houses in Idaho while on a scenic drive, and I wrote a fun homeschool series on my personal blog. We also celebrated Zach's 25th birthday. 

March-

In March I saw the first blooms of my very first tulip garden. The crocuses came out first and cheered me with their yellow color. 

April-

In April we celebrated Easter as a family. And my hard-working guys surprised me with my very own craft room. It's beach themed and has become my favorite room in the house. 

My craft girls love it, too. 😊 Our first craft time in the new room was a spring craft party at the end of April where we made tulip gardens.

May-

In May I hosted my first Homeschool Meet and Greet. It was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and the turnout was better than I expected. It was my way of advocating homeschooling in my community. I hope to host another one next year. We also attended our town's Black and White Days as a family. We watched the parade and horse pulls.

June-

In June I started weekly craft days for my craft girls. This was the first time I've done so and it made my summer delightful. Every Thursday I hosted two 2-hour craft sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. It worked great! The girls made kindness rocks, a Father's Day gift, nature journals, and leis. We also went to Summerfest which is a summer tradition for us. Summerfest is a crafts fair in Logan, Utah.

July-

In July we celebrated Darcie's 23rd birthday. For craft days my girls made dream catchers, beach scenes, vision boards, and pineapple pencil cans.

August-

In August I wrapped up my weekly craft days with two final crafts: lollipops and scrapbooks with photos from our summer fun together. We also came up with a name for our club: the SURF Club which stands for Sweet Unique aRtsy Friends. I also hosted a mom craft! Marcus got his driver's permit and started his driver's ed class, carpooling with three girls in our ward (church congregation). One of the girls told him that he doesn't go to "real school" and as a response, Marcus wrote a personal essay which I posted on my personal blog. It's called, What is "Real School" and I think he makes some honest points!

September-

In September, Darcie, Marcus and I participated in our first Walk MS with Zach. It was Zach's second Walk MS. Zach was diagnosed with MS when he was 23. It was an emotional experience for me which I've heard is common for mamas. We hope to pull together a bigger walking group next year so come join us! It was also my birthday and David came home that weekend to spend it with me. The boys and I went hiking to Bloomington Lake which was fun. Marcus and I visited David in Montana (he started working there this year) for the last week of September and first week of October.

October-

In October I hosted a Halloween craft party. The girls made Halloween wreaths, witch cauldrons, and monsters. They wore costumes and for dinner I served mummy dogs and monster mac 'n cheese. Marcus participated in a week long Youth Conference through Liahona (his distance school). 

November-

In November I decided to host weekly craft days again! To accommodate the girls after-school schedules I ended up hosting a group on Monday, another group on Wednesday, and a group on Friday. Whew! It was a lot of fun. They made story pumpkins, foam turkeys, stain glass art and turkey cupcakes, and penguins. I took Thanksgiving week off of course. We celebrated Thanksgiving as a family. At the end of November, Marcus and my friend, Heather, and I, saw the Broadway show, Finding Neverland at our local theater. (For my birthday this year, David gave me the best gift- season tickets to Eccles theater.

December-

In December I hosted a Christmas craft party for my SURF Club girls, of course! The boys and I also went to Eccles to see a Bar J Wranglers Christmas concert. Just before Christmas, three of the moms of some of my craft girls surprised me at my door. They sang, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and gave me a spa gift. It was a really sweet act of friendship that meant so much to me.

The most beautiful part of our Christmas Day was Skyping with The Sweetest Missionary Ever. She's amazing! She is soooo happy! She was bubbly and cute and she would love to hear more from extended family and friends so WRITE HER! Her birthday is coming up (January 12th) so send her birthday wishes. Her email is: marissa.madsen@myldsmail.net

After Christmas, we kept our yearly tradition of going down to Salt Lake City (or thereabouts) to attend an event as a family. This year we chose to walk through Thanksgiving Point's Luminaria. My brother, Clint, and his family joined us. David's mom, who spent Christmas with us, was there, too. It was COLD! But it was a lot of fun. We also visited the BYU Museum of Art and went to dinner at Rodizio Grill. Yum!

To all of our friends and extended family, thanks for being a part of our lives. We love you and wish we saw you more often. We wish you a Happy New Year and a successful 2019.