2009 ! Bring it on!

OK, so the last couple of months of 2008 have been the hardest, saddest, most stressful, spiritual, growing, interesting months ever!!!

So, needless to say, I am very much looking forward to 2009! I would never have thought at the beginning of last year that I would have lived through:

January- can't think of anything big-- starting to get Tanner ready for a mission is all I can think of.
February - my Dad has a mini stroke. In the hospital for a week or so.
March- Again, nothing really big. Again, the focus is on Tanner- preparing to enter the MTC
April - Tanner begins his mission to Russia, Rostov-na-Danu on April 9th. (If you have ever been a missionary mom, you know that this is a little stressful. Preparing, and then saying good bye to your "baby"! But a good hard thing!
May - the beginnings of our addition and remodel on our house (filing plans, contracts, etc)
June - the REAL beginning of our addition and remodel.
Tanner leaves for Russia.
July - Aaron marries the love of his life, Allie Askins! (Most of you know that a wedding, albeit very positive and great, is on the stressful side too!1 But, alas, I am the mother of the groom, so not as much!!! But with my house torn apart and living out of my bedroom, and no kitchen, still, the stress I feel could be matched if not toppling Allie's mom's. She may beg to differ!!!)
My father has another mini stroke and is in the hospital for a couple weeks at least.
Oh, and we find out that our Ashley and Mark are expecting a baby! Yippeeeeee! Grandparenthood!! I can hardly wait!

Taylor breaks foot at football camp. Has to have surgery.
August- school starts!! yes!! Taylor's foot heals nicely, and he misses only one or two of the regular season games! We love football season or any sports season, when our kids are involved!
We are still without a kitchen at this point. We are frustrated, to say the least, and my stress, anxiety level has been raised to a new level and I am thinking I need to up the meds!!!
September - things seem to be getting better. I think this is when we get our kitchen finished. So things are looking up. It's still hotter than haites here, but things are plugging right along.
October - this is when the fun begins. Taylor hurts his knee in football. But it isn't too seriously, thankfully. My birthday comes with a lot of fun at the lake and all. (And I haven't hit any BIG landmark b-days yet. JUst getting much closer!).
On my birthday, Ashley finds out she is leaking amniotic fluid and the real "fun" begins! She is in and out of the hospital a couple of times and on bedrest the rest of the time.
November - Ashley's situation continues. Affects us all. But hey, my kitchen is in full use and the house is doing great. Oh, I forgot that even though the actual adding on was completed in August, we still had tile, painting and carpet to be installed throughout all these above mentioned months and it seemed like we would never have a finished, un chaotic house ever again. Somewhere in here, can't remember when now, we DID have the tile installed. Then we painted, and painted, and painted some more. Don't want to put carpet in BEFORE painting!!
Can I just say, "I HATE TO PAINT!!!!!
Ashley is admitted into the hospital on Nov. 17th when she hits 24 weeks! Yeah!!! We think!!

Thanksgiving weekend (now I remember, we finished painting and got carpet in the Monday before Thanksgiving!) we moved my parents in our house. They have the two other bedrooms upstairs. We also, moved Mark and Ashley out of their apt. into a littler basement apt. by the temple.
Ashley is there for two full weeks, we all think we can do this until Jan. or Feb. at least!! But not so!
December - Our little Miles decided that he was tired of it all and came Dec. 1st at 26 weeks exactly. After a scary emergency C-section due to cord prolapse, he came out not breathing or heart beating. But they got him going.
After two days of suffering and his organs not functioning - especially his kidneys, he passed away on Dec. 3rd.
Taylor's B-day was Dec. 3rd. He will always always remember his 18th birthday.
The next couple of weeks are a blur. But we have a funeral for Miles on the 13th and burial is on the 15th.
Ten days left to think about and get ready for Christmas. Also, Mark and Ashley move in with us for a couple of weeks while she heals from her major C-section (she was cut both ways in order to get Miles out quicker) and she can't go down and up stairs - which they live in a basement apt.
Sam and I move down into the basement so Ash and Mark can have our room. I missed my bed!!
We hop along getting ready as much as we can and trying to be in the Christmas spirit.
Have our annual Whatcott white elephant party on the 20th.
Sam's sister, Paula comes into town for Christmas, 21st. Also his Dad and wife! Get together with the Dahl side at his brother's Christmas Eve. Party for all that week, eat, eat and eat. Get sick from eating so much and so crappy! But are we ever celebrating!!!
Have a great Christmas day!
Monday before New Year's go up to Lakeside with the Browns. Relax and do nothing as much as possible. Throw in shopping and shooting, and for the guys skiing/snowboarding, and we are set!
New Year's Eve, come home from Lakeside, and celebrate like it's 1999. Oh wait, I do mean 2008!! Woohoo!!!
A few more days of vacation. Sleeping in, eating crappy, staying up late. Can it get any better???

January --5th ---2009--- TODAY! Looking forward to a calm, low stress, sit around emailing, facebooking, and blogging all day!!!
SUCCESS!!
(Now if I can get my tight, sore shoulder muscles from sitting at the computer all day to relax!!!)

PS. I can't believe it's 5 o'clock!! Where does the time go??