My crazy life!

Well, it's been a while!  My life has been a whirlwind it seems like since I last posted on Inkie Fingers.  You have probably all given up on me!  Hope not!!

The last time I posted (October!) I mentioned that I was down in the dumps about some personal things going on.  Well that feeling stayed with me for a month or more.  My daughter (Ashley) had joined Stampin' Up in July so that she could go to Stampin' Up's 30th year convention in Florida with me.  We had big plans!  She was going to be in Orlando the week before convention and I made my reservations with that in mind, going a few days early to hang out with her.  Well, in October she got orders to deploy to VietNam for 8 weeks, leaving a week before convention.  I couldn't change my reservations so I just went and chilled for the extra days by myself!  My sister joined me a couple of days later and we enjoyed ourselves at convention.  We were able to talk to Ashley via an app of my phone so that made things a little better.  Convention was fun and we got to see some of the new items from the Occasions Catalog and Sale-a-Bration.  I came home with several new stamp sets but would you believe, I still haven't used them!  I used one new set yesterday but that's it!  

In November, I had the family for Thanksgiving as I have done for 12 years now.  It was nice but we all were missing Ashley.  We were able to all talk to her via the app.  She and another soldier prepared the Thanksgiving meal for the group - about 35 people.  It was a challenge since there was no oven, just a large toaster oven and several burners to cook green beans, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, mushrooms .....  They deep fried the turkey.  Her mission was to recover a soldier who had been killed during the VietNam war.  Unfortunately, they never recovered any remains before returning home in December.  But that was a story in itself!  When they left VietNam, they had problems with the airplane and had to land on Wake Island in the Pacific.  There is very little civilization on Wake except for a small military base where they stayed for 3-4 days before they could get another plane to pick them up and return to Hawaii.  She was more than ready to come home!  Luckily she got home before we arrived for Christmas (by about 5 days!)

 After Convention and Thanksgiving was over, I gave a wedding shower for my nephew's (Derek) fiance.  Ashley again was supposed to help with the shower as well as be there for it, but .... things don't always work our, do they?!  But, the show must go on.  We had a nice time and I think Morgan enjoyed it as well.  Sonny made a giant Jenga game for them and we played it at the shower.

In December, we flew to Hawaii and spent a month enjoying ourselves.  We just returned home this past Tuesday and I brought a cold home with me.  I feel better today but I was sounding pretty bad Wednesday and Thursday!  I will share Hawaii pictures in my next post.