A few MAJOR events since my last posting.

So, we FINALLY downloaded pictures starting in November and I realized how CRAZY things have been and how very, very much has happened since I last blogged. The first, and quite frankly the most major thing is that my neighbor, well, practically my 4th sister, JC (Jen) got baptized, along with her new husband, Lee and his son Chandler. Her daughter, Sasha, was only 6 and thus too young, but she was rather peeved about not being able to be baptized with the rest. We were SOO lucky to be able to go to TX for the baptism and, coincidentally enough, Jason had a meeting in Houston the same week so we were there for an entire week and he didn't have to take off a single day!! It was SOO cool!! Anyway, this is a pic of the family right before the baptism.

While we were in TX, our offer on a house was accepted (FINALLY. . . it was only the 5th offer we had put in on a house in NH) so we got to work on setting everything up. Inspections, finalizing mortgages, you name it, we were doing it. Well, we were set to close on Dec 12 and for those of you who DON'T know, that was the day of the Ice storm that completely shut down most of New England, knocking out power to almost a half million homes in NH alone. So, below are pics from that storm, and of our house directly after the storm. We took these photos and then went down to stay with my brother Mike in Boston while we waited for our power to come back on. Good thing because it was 4 days and it was COLD!!

So, we are now into our new house (mostly unpacked too!!) and starting the renovations. The house was built in 1974 and there was NOTHING done to it from then until the owner died in Jan of 2007. So, the house having been vacant for 2 years was NOT helpful, (we've had to roust out the animals who had taken it over, since we've moved in) and we are slowly getting the 70's fake antique look out of it. It has only just begun. We figure if we do a room a month for the next 16 months or so (giving us time to do the yard and so forth too) we should be pretty well done. We've done quite a bit already, but thankfully, Mike and Tanya live close by and have offered to help us with some of the more major stuff, like tearing down the back porch which acts more as a moss platform than anything!! Anyway, hope you enjoy the pictures!!