A new year

Sorry for the long lack of posts. I tried to post over the holidays and wasn't able to access our account. So...here's the update. :)

Mark and I spent Christmas in Denver with his family. As some of you may know, Denver received a pretty good snowfall the Wednesday before Christmas, but our drive out there the day before Christmas Eve was sunny and uneventful, and we didn't even see any snow on the ground until about an hour outside of Colorado. We did lots and lots of eating with his family over the weekend and then decided to drive to his parents' cabin in the mountains west of Colorado Springs for a day. We drove out there with his parents and three dogs (two cars, thank goodness!) on Wednesday to find very little snow. We spent the night there and then had a four hour drive back (should have been two) due to another snowstorm deciding to hit Colorado. That afternoon, Thursday, "they" (whoever they might be) closed I-70, which was our route home. Closed as in "put big gates across the highway so you can't get on it", not just a recommendation not to go that way. :) Not a big deal, since we weren't leaving until Saturday.

So Thursday afternoon and evening we watched our nephew J who's 6. We took him to dinner and had a great time at Fazoli's. Then we went back home and watched Narnia, skipping one scene that I felt was way too violent for a 6-year-old. Friday, Mark and J built a snow fort in the front yard and then we all went sledding in the afternoon. I haven't been sledding in a long time and it was so much fun!

Friday night: I-70 was still not open, and all of the other highways north and south out of Denver were also closed. Around 10pm we decided we weren't going to be leaving on Saturday, so we stayed up late playing the board game Fireball Island. Mark had played it growing up but I had never seen it before, and he beat me quite soundly in two games. Saturday we went and visited family, and still I-70 remained closed. At this point we were getting a little worried, because I needed to be at work on Tuesday. We tried to find flights home for me that didn't cost a month's salary. Nope. Sunday we went to church with Mark's parents, and lo and behold, Sunday afternoon "they" opened up I-70. We opted to wait to leave until Monday morning and just do the drive in one day. Other than about 100 miles in western Kansas that was absolutely awful, the rest of the drive was a piece of cake and we got home late on New Year's Day. I, of course, had to get up and go to work the next morning. :)

The latest rumor from Ukraine is that the SDA director and several deputies have resigned, possibly due to a change in their government similar to what just happened with our Congress. The resignations have not been confirmed, so we'll see what happens with that. In the meantime, happy new year!! :)