Ruth's Birthday + New Year's Holiday

My big day came!  But before that birthday, Daniel, Amy, Lizzy and Rachel visited us which was very fun!

Soon after Christmas, maybe a day or two later, the Patersons invited us over.  Little did I know it was a surprise birthday party! That was so thougthful!

Elder Robertson was allowed to call me on my birthday!

Eery winter photos from the cemetary.

On my actual birthday Lois and Jeff and family were here!  I got up early that morning and ran a 1/2 marathon for my birthday present to me. 

We headed to the Blue Ridge Tunnel Trail to go on a hike through the tunnel!  It's 0.80 miles long! 80% of a mile, haha.  Pretty long! You can ride bikes through it as well.  A headlamp or flashlight is pretty much a must! The Swinsons joined us as well which was fun.  Geneva, Henry and Levi

Even though we celebrated my birthday, Lee decorated!  Fun!  I love having people at our house, but I decided to celebrate my birthday early for two reasons.  The past few years we've celebrated Lee's birthday with just our family and it's been really great.  Since that couldn't happen on my actual birthday becausae I knwe we'd have guests, a different celebration day was in order!  The other part was food....I didn't want to be bothered with figureing out a yummy birthday meal or whatever. 

Ad the end of the tunnel!

Fun mist on the trail!

We took Reed skiing with us and Jeff took Blake and Rhett skiing for the first time!

Cal, Reed and Christian went to Walmart for goodie run.  They were at Christians's house and did a detour.

We headed up to Pennsylvania that afternoon of my birthday!  One day we went to an antique/consignement shop and I decided to jog there.  It was 7 miles away, or so I thought, but was acutally only 5 or so.  So I kept running till I hit 7.

We checked out a bakery later that evening.  It was frustrating because they didn't seem happy we were in there.  We knew they were closing soon and seem to keep telling us to get in line.  But then other customers would walk in and look around and the workers didn't seem to mind. I just wanted to look around. 

Jeff and Lee wore the same shirt that evening...haha.

We had a fun New Year's Eve party!  (And yes, my birthday was low key which I liked!). 

That evening we lit and sent off paper lanterns again.  We were going to write on them but at the last moment there was more of a rush to just send them off.  It wasn't very windy which made it harder for take-off.  Two of them were stuck in a tree.  Myself and a couple others were worried about this, but the I realized, as I think someone pointed this out, they would just keep buring in the airballo and die out. One left the tree to higher heights nad the other stayed behind. 

The lack of wind made it hard to send them off as well.  But we got several of them off!  It's been fun doing this two years in a row!

Time to go downtown for the midnight wrench drop!  We got great parking and had fun being part of the crowd. 

Clark was able to call and say hello for a couple mintues too.

New Year's day was the antique/consignment shop I mentioned earlier.  I guess we went there New Year's Day?  Lee bought an old 3D viewfinder.  Slip in a special old photograph and you get 3D!

Here is the piece for your head.  The old-fashioned Oculus. 

Park Time!

Items Shanna purchased that day!

What a fun holiday season!  Still a bit crazy...let's see if 2022 can go more smoothly.... Happy New Year!  Wow, 2022?!  It's going to be a GREAT year! We have lots of plans with going to Ireland and England, getting the office building completely done--main floor and basement, Shanna and Haley getting their permits later this year, hosting my family reunion, more travel and our 20th anniversary!