Ups and Downs

Where to begin?  This has been a month full of emotion and all I can say is that I am worn out...  We had a wonderful celebration of Christmas and New Years!  The kids were all home for at least two weeks and we took full advantage of it.  We surprised the kids with a trip to a dude ranch in Arizona for Christmas!  So, we all took off early on Christmas morning to fly to Vegas.  We spent a day and night exploring the city of Las Vegas and joining some old friends for Christmas dinner before renting a car and driving to Hoover Dam and then on to the middle of nowhere Arizona to get to our dude ranch where we spent the week.

The Stagecoach Trails Guest Ranch was everything that we had hoped it would be and more!  We all just loved it!  We did plenty of riding in addition to roping, mountain biking, archery, swimming, horseshoe pitching, eating, hiking, playing games and making new friends with some of the other guests.  Such fun!

We also celebrated Josh's 46th birthday while we were there!

We came home to celebrate New Years with many of Quincy's high school friends.  It was so nice to have them all together again and in Cleveland.  We all enjoyed that as well.  And, then we went on to celebrate Christmas with Josh's family and then mine.  Also, great times for everyone.

After Calvin went back to school and the celebrations ended, Quincy and I took a road trip to New York city so he could participate in an internship interview.  It went well and they have asked him back for a second interview in April!  Woo hoo!  While we were there, we got to enjoy the city in a snowstorm, which I loved!  And, we were able to visit some of our very dear French friends who now live in NJ.

And, then the highs were over for awhile....

On Tuesday, January 10, Tabitha was involved in a very serious car accident about 5 miles from home.  The other driver crossed the center line for some reason and hit Tabitha's car head on at more than 45 miles per hour.  It was awful.  Tabitha was actually very lucky but still suffered some serious injuries including a collapsed lung.  So, she spent 3 days in the ICU followed by 7 days in a regular room in the hospital.

But, fortunately, she was then healed enough to come home!  She was home for just 24 hours before she wanted to head back to New Orleans and catch up on the semester that she was missing in school.  She is not allowed to fly for 2 months so Josh and I made her as comfortable as we could in the car and made the long drive down to New Orleans.  Josh then turned around and came back home but I stayed for 4 more days to make sure Tabitha was doing well and didn't need anything.

She perked up quickly in the sunshine and being back among her friends so I came home and am now getting back into our usual routine!  whew!

Today was a far cry from those sunny days in New Orleans but we did enjoy a beautiful snow day with Max!  Looking for some more snow tonight!