Our household is full...full of LOVE...full of family...pets...you name it-we might actually have it around here. There's a little of something for everyone and it seems to be everything around but at the same time nothing right here.
The Smith Family is looking forward to not only turning the page on 2014 but tearing the sucker completely outta the book. We are ready for whatever 2015 throws at us, you can call us warmed up, it's really just used to taking punches.
The last spring we moved from Osakis back to Walker,MN (where we both were born and raised) we've spent a lot of the past year in the car driving from one doctor appointment to the next specialist appointment for the next text, procedure, or to yet consult over another diagnoses and learn how to adapt my living around it, since usually no cure or treatment available. The autoimmune diseases are coming in hard and heavy. Next week I get to start IVIG Infusions (we waited nearly a year for approval) I am on a 6 month trial, my dream team of Dr. Specialists are very hopeful that to see progression and building my immunity back.
Colter spent his last summer as a teen working hard and shipped of to boot camp basic training a couple weeks early, right after his going away party in September. Chad and I flew out to California to see Colter graduate from the Marine Corps on Dec. 5th. It was an amazing accomplishment, and I'm so happy we got to be a part of it!🎓🗽⚓️🇺🇸
Hunter enjoyed working at a resort this summer (happened to be the same one Chad and myself worked at 12 summers ago) Hunter stays busy up selling vehicles and playing with stereo systems. He played soccer ⚽️this fall and I was able to make it to a game, (we had a very warm fall) Hunter signed up with the Army National Guard 🇺🇸in October and will be doing his first weekend coming up soon, his boot camp will be this summer when he's on school break.
This year Paige got engaged to Bryant and they are planning for a December 2015 wedding in Walker, Minnesota. They also purchased their first home in Hutchinson. Paige enrolled back into school to pursue her degree for Human Resources. She is currently working in Bloomington as a Human Resources Assistant. Bryant is working Winthrop as an Accounting specialist. Paige and Bryant also plan on running Grandmas half marathon this upcoming spring!
Cadance fell in LOVE with the art of dance 🎼🎶🎵🎤this summer and hasn't stopped spinning since. She has an amazing natural talent and is picking it up fast in Walker Just For Kix 👯(that's why we are constantly fundraising for her to go to Florida next winter with the group and dance in the halftime of the Outback Bowl!) This girl is high kickin, jumpin, twirling and landing in the splits all over our house now that it's too cold to send her outside! She went on an overnight field trip with the 4th grade to Deep Portage and learned about nature. She really enjoys her teacher this year and has made some great friends in the neighborhood and dance.its great to see her smiling again.
Cortlan turned 2 in August and is following in the tracks of his older sister in sooo many ways, except he's 💯% boy, always a ball of some kind🏀🏈 ⚾️🎾🏉⚽️in his hand. We still haven't cut his hair so the Afro look has grown into a long surfer look now. I'm just not ready to loose those beautiful curls, and he loves me playing with his hair so there's too much holding me back with the sheers just yet, maybe by kindergarten check back with me. ✌️He had much enjoyment this year at many many "first's"; lots of parades, swimming in lake and pool, parks, fairs, playground, picnic, ect all things I can't do alone-but now have so much more help to do with the kids!
Grandma Barb gets to see her grandchildren much more now that we are close in distance. I don't know how we would of made it through last year with out her help with the kids! Cortlan and Brayden have become not just close cousins but also "best friends". They are probably the funniest 2&4 year olds you will ever meet, (don't expect to get a word in, and don't go in thinking you will understand any of the 2 year olds words!) grandma Barb should win an award for raising one grandchild since birth, running a full time daycare and taking my kid or kids with little to no notice when doctor appointments send us traveling or running long.
Grandpa Mark also moved back to Walker from Green Valley, Az to help Chad with the household. There's enough work here to keep him busy forever. We had to make the whole house handicapped accessible by hauling loads out and opening up space. A total remodel and outside work for the next decade. We bought the house that Chad grew up in. (I am hollering up the bedroom vent to Cadance like his mom woulda been hollering up at him to keep it quite!) Mark is bringing life back to the exterior home and huge lot, maybe Chad or I will take up gardening. Grandpa Mark would take me and Cortlan for walks in the wheel chair (and once he was to much pain for my lap he rigged a pulley system for a wagon behind my chair) almost every evening of the OTHER 3 seasons. We would go to the harbor, the city dock, the bedeck, playground, or bike trail. I had never taken in how amazingly well kept and a treat for the eye the Walker area is! I am very fortunate to live here, there is beauty all around us!
As always Chad stays busy with work. In the early hours of the day you will find him one block from home, down the hill at the Chase on the lake. It was where his very first job was when he was growing up as well! Later in the day he's working at Zona Rosa cooking. He got his 72' Olds outta storage and did a little tire squealing and let Colter put a few miles on it before fall was over. The rest of his time I take up with doctoring.
In the late spring of last year we were blessed with a PCA to help care for me and take some of the load off of Chad. He was able to hire one of my life long close friends (which comes in handy having a familiar face after a seizure and memory loss) it's also easier cause she's just another addition to our family. She has to know everything that's going on to be able to communicate between doctors when Chad can't go and then bring all the info home.
Well that my friends concludes this lasts years hectic life, busy spinning wheels, not going too many places, or seeing too many things but all the while sticking close to one another while it happens.
My wish to you is that you get the chance in your life to feel the love that I am blessed with everyday.
Happy Last Year, Happy Present Year, Happy New Year, Happy Future Year
The Smiths✌️