TOM
January - February
January - February
Seeing Maui and Hawaii for the first time. Qahu is still my favorite.
Skiing two new resorts in Utah (Snowbasin and Powder Mountain)
Missionary farewell parties
Entering the subculture of senior missionary couples
March - December
Back in Italy as a missionary - this time with a companion of MY choice
Realizing we would get to travel all over Italy seeing wonderful places, meeting amazing people, and helping a lot of people in our new calling
Walking into the San Lorenzo chapel in Florence to be greeted by a roomful of grateful refugees in soccer uniforms we purchased for them so they could form two teams to play in the local soccer league
Taking Abraham and Mohammed to lunch at a restaurant in Rome and having them tell us it was the first time they had ever eaten with white people
Mohammed telling us he and Zizi were going to name their new son Tom
Getting so many of our projects approved and funded (35 projects in 2017)
Living by and hanging out with the Elders and Sisters in our District. We are their surrogate Mom and Dad.
Lows
Saying goodbye to family for 18 months
Living in Montespaccato
Driving in Italy
Trying to deal with our crazy boss in Frankfurt
Happy 2018!
ANITA
I find the highs/lows are usually connected.
I find the highs/lows are usually connected.
High: Serving a full-time mission
Low: finding out it is more confining/harder/different than I thought it would be
High: cuddling a new granddaughter and visiting with some family members
Low: leaving that new granddaughter and family members. Actually missing all family members more than ever. (We are anxious to come home and start serving each of you!)
High: getting projects approved from our Boss
Low: the predictable, unpredictable boss
High: Meeting, coming to know, and working with amazingly unselfish, giving people
Low: the unrelenting needs and hopelessness of some of the people we work 'for'
High: living in Parioli
Low: living in Montespeccato
High: Low cholesterol (147) and going to Brussels for the tests and the Christmas Light-Show in the Grand Place.
Low: High cholesterol (264)
High: Traveling in Italy for work, and traveling in Italy for fun (Ischia Island thermal baths)
Low: Being stung by jellyfish (Lipari Islands)
High: Living in Rome (listening to the church bells peal as I write this)
Low: Driving in Rome (we plan to use public transport and use the car only when essential)
Some are just plain low: Paperwork!
Some are just plain high: Working full time with my companion! Sunday calls from our kids and feeling their love and support (this cannot be overstated how much we appreciate this). Being healthy.
We welcome 2018.
May we all be as blessed in the New Year as we have been this past year!
Love to everyone!
Mom
SETH
High: Penny being born, having the move and new job work out so well and liking our new location so much (me, at least), Jonah becoming much easier to handle as the year went on
High: Penny being born, having the move and new job work out so well and liking our new location so much (me, at least), Jonah becoming much easier to handle as the year went on
Low: loud cars by our house and city council deciding to approve 74 houses on the farmers fields behind our house leading us to still be up in the air with our housing situation
HEIDI
Highs: our move going smoothly for the most part- Seth loves his job and kids adjusted quickly. Kauai with Seth. BABY PENNY!
Highs: our move going smoothly for the most part- Seth loves his job and kids adjusted quickly. Kauai with Seth. BABY PENNY!
Lows: leaving good friends in San Diego, not being settled with our housing, morning sickness for half of my pregnancy, most painful headache of my life which led to my first real ER visit.
Low - the way I ate for 3 weeks in Utah and Idaho. Lily’s broken arm. Online training for scoutmaster...100x more painful than camping with other people’s kids.
High - being a one car family again. :) Going to Brussels for work. Quebec ramps and bakeries. No work Travel for a full summer! Still feeling close to Melanie and each of my kids one year later.
MELANIE
Highs: Running a 5K with Rachel, going on waterslides with my kids at the wolf lodge, Rachel winning a local poetry contest, getting a new play set, camping with the horses in Assateague, spending time with family in Utah and Idaho, seeing the Tetons and Yellowstone, our relaxing weekend in the Adirondacks and kayaking under the stars, Quebec Canada, the cranberry harvest tour with Jake, reading and watching all of the Harry Potters and experiencing the Wizarding World with my kids, seeing Tommy's flag football team win the championship, staying in Times Square for Thanksgiving, having snow at Christmas time.
Highs: Running a 5K with Rachel, going on waterslides with my kids at the wolf lodge, Rachel winning a local poetry contest, getting a new play set, camping with the horses in Assateague, spending time with family in Utah and Idaho, seeing the Tetons and Yellowstone, our relaxing weekend in the Adirondacks and kayaking under the stars, Quebec Canada, the cranberry harvest tour with Jake, reading and watching all of the Harry Potters and experiencing the Wizarding World with my kids, seeing Tommy's flag football team win the championship, staying in Times Square for Thanksgiving, having snow at Christmas time.
Lows: Having tender swollen lymph nodes for half the year and multiple blood draws (I'm fine, just a bad sick season), Lily breaking her arm on the trampoline, losing our Corolla and adjusting to being a one car family again (95% of the time it works great, the other 5% of the time it's a real pain)
STEVE
I know, last one to comment. I'm so unreliable. I get it. We do get to use the excuse of having family in town, however, so there's that.
Yet, after much anticipation I present the revealing of the 2017 Highs and Lows of the Other Idaho Herways:
Highs:
Steve's new job with Residence Inn
Steve's boss moving to a different office
Following grammy and pops mission blog
Moving into our first (rental) house. Loving the fenced-in yard
Our new ward is wonderful
We've all been relatively healthy this year
Our trip to New York
Felicia's discovery of being a ninth generation New Yorker
Felicia going back to college through Pathways
Felicia's weight loss
Going to Yellowstone for the first time
Kent being awesome
Kent growing up
Lows:
Kent growing up
Having a miscarriage early in the year
Steve's boss
Having more expenses along with the house
As per usual, our highs outweigh our lows. May our new year be just as blessed!
High: Actually moving to Hawaii. We made it happen!
Everyone liking everything here for the most part (neighbors, school, church, location of our house) and even though our house is a bit small for 5 people I was surprised to find we do fit.
Finally finding a place for 4 months so we can move back to the beach house in May (low would be trying to find a place. It was a nightmare.)
Starting over (sort of) with only what was in our suitcases. Kind of surreal and refreshing to feel free of “stuff.”
Finally convincing Noel we only need one car.
Visitors
Low:
Cockroaches 😩😵
When our renters backed out so we had to relist the house and then we found out the property manager hadn’t secured the deposit like she was supposed to and all that entailed (for example: politely “fighting” with the property manager and keeping our house clean for showings (including having to stop packing or painting and clean it all up at a moment’s notice for showings) while moving which is an oxymoron because only a moron would attempt that)
I forgot to mention one important high:
The small miracles that led us to our house. We felt very blessed with the way things worked out even though there were some disappointments along the way.
We searched for months for somewhere to live on Oahu. Couldn’t find anything in Laie so we started looking all over the island. They do things differently we found out- which makes finding housing difficult esp from the mainland.
Our house got rented so we bought our tickets to come.
We decided to get a one month vacation rental so we could find something while here. It was non refundable.
The next day the beach house was posted in the town we wanted and even on the beach but it was available immediately. They wouldn’t wait for us to get there. We had to start renting right away- may 1. Our renters were coming June and we were flying June 7. So we would have to make 3 housing payments in one month. We couldn’t/didn’t think that was very smart way to spend our money.
After a few days we finally heard back from the vacation rental. He refunded us even though it was supposed to be nonrefundable making it possible for us to get the beach house.
Then Our renters backed out. Manager didn’t secure deposit so we had no renters and no deposit but a plane ticket to move and a lease on another house. After much back and forth we came to an agreement so we didn’t lose too much money (she gave part of the deposit to us) and she was able to secure renters only a few weeks later so we only lost a few weeks rent.
So it all worked out but not without difficulties every step of the way but also small miracles too. I wanted to share because we truly felt Heavenly Father guiding us and supporting us and blessing us during this time in more ways than I can explain here.
DAN
Steve/Felicia, you aren't the last ones. The Other Other Idaho Herway haven't gotten theirs in either. Nobody's hating on you. Grammie doesn't put a due date on this tradition and she's really kind about letting people just respond when they can.
Steve/Felicia, you aren't the last ones. The Other Other Idaho Herway haven't gotten theirs in either. Nobody's hating on you. Grammie doesn't put a due date on this tradition and she's really kind about letting people just respond when they can.
Highs:
- Family trips to new places - Seattle/Vancouver, Costa Rica, Boulder White Clouds Wilderness backpacking trip
- This past Christmas was chill and awesome
- Lara's Equador trip
- Dan's job
- Listening to Scarlet and Daph singing/guitar/piano fill the house
- Daph getting her driver's license and qualifying for State in XC
- Zane deep sea fishing in Florida and shooting his first buck
- Scarlet loving wakeboarding, singing the national anthem at the Boise State game and learning that she loves to sew
- Brau having the option of contacts, getting straight A+, throwing a guy out a second base from catcher, two homers (one grand slam)
- Levi rocking pitching machine baseball, loving his new school and watching his unique personality develop
- Another year of still liking each other
Lows:
- Paying $1000 to not see Hamilton
- Zane's summer math class. We wanted him to get a year ahead. Dude fought it HARD every morning.
- Not being ready for how different and exhausting teenagers can be. We feel blessed to have really good-hearted, kind teenagers but we forgot that being a teenager sucks in so many ways. It's a blast but it's a wild ride that caught us off guard this year.
Love you all and Happy New Year!
High: Cora’s expanding vocabulary and humor, Cora "getting" Christmas, Jed completing his code school, my new job, having a healthy pregnancy
Low: miscarrying in the spring, morning sickness, double double foot surgery for the second time
Jed's
High: second child on the way and hearing her heartbeat, finishing my program, moving out of marketing and into front end development
Low: Utah air, not getting a job I wanted in Kansas
2 comments:
There are some stories I haven't heard about here - why Dan had to pay $1000 to not see Hamilton, the complications of Natalie's move (I knew it was crazy but not THAT crazy), etc. So much happens in a year!
I love this tradition. Especially since we all live far apart and don’t know about a lot of these events. This helps keeps me in the loop. Sorry mine was so long!
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