7th Anniversary!

Today is our 7th Anniversary. It's interesting how it seems that on one hand the time has just flown by. But on the other hand, that it seems like Mary's been in my life for so long... my life before Mary seems like it was sooooo long ago (and don't take that the wrong way). Here's a brief statistical summary of our seven years together:

-We've been married for 2,558 days and over 61,300 hours.

-We have three cute kids

-We've lived in 8 different locations and 5 different cities

-We've been in 9 different wards

-We've had four vehicles

-We've gone from having one nephew to four nieces and six nephews (w/ at least one more on the way - probably a boy!)

Alright, this is getting kind of boring and tedious to think about some of this somewhat unnecessary info.

Needless to say, we've had a great 7 years! We're planning on doing something fun in the Spring/Early Summer without the kids, but I'm taking the day off tomorrow to enjoy the day with just my wife (and Jane for most of the day).

We're fully aware of the 7 year itch and the stresses of kids on a marriage (we KNOW!), but we are still in love and enjoy spending time together. We pine for minutes, hours, and (gasp!) days where we can just get away and be together. We look forward to quiet moments in the evening after the kids are asleep where we get to just talk with each other about our days and just connect. We love doing our own things and then being together again. We enjoy being around each other in both large and small social settings. We love watching each other serve in the church as we develop some of our talents. I am frequently amazed at how she makes our income expand and go much farther than I could even hope it would. I'm amazed at how organized and driven she is when she sets her mind to something. Life is busy, crazy, fun, hectic, frustrating, enjoyable, silly, rewarding, tiring and everything in-between and more... and I'm so glad that I can spend this life, and particularly eternal life, with my Sweetheart. Happy Anniversary to Us!

Primary Program '08

As part of our church services on Sunday, Sarah attends two hours of "Primary". One of the hours is spent with her in a class with other kids her age where they have a lesson from their volunteer teacher. During the other hour they are in what's called "Sharing Time" where they learn and sing songs, give talks, read scriptures, do little presentations, etc. Anyway, each year the primary organization (kids ages 3-12) in each congregation puts on their annual "Primary Program" presentation during the "Sacrament Meeting" portion of our worship services. Anyway, during this presentation the kids typically sing songs on a certain topic and most of the kids have very brief speaking parts where they answer a question or share a brief thought on the topic. This year's program title was "I Am a Child of God". About a month ago we were asked to ask Sarah the question "How are you being a missionary now?" and get her response and then let them know what it is. Even though we'd like to help her come up with the answer to such questions and guide her in what she says, we also like to just let her say what she feels, as she probably has something better to say than us anyway. Such was the case here. This is what she said in the program today:

"I am being a missionary now by sharing the Gospel with other people. I tell the stories of the Book of Mormon to Elizabeth. She is my friend from school. I told her if we don't interrupt we can follow heavenly Father's commandments, and get blessed. Mrs. Murphy is my teacher at school. She knows that I read the Book of Mormon every night. She doesn't have a Book of Mormon. If it's her next brithday, and I am still here, I could share new scriptures with her.
I could call Kylie and her family and say 'can I please tell you about the Gospel?' I think she would say "yes" and then I would get ready and go. I am not big enough so I might need a map."

We were of course supposed to help her practice this so she could present it. The funny thing is that she would resist whenever Mary wanted to sit down with her to go over it. Mary would sometimes just recite it to her over lunch or dinner, but Sarah didn't really want to practice it. Then yesterday during dinner she basically recited it (almost word-for-word) by memory, we were fairly floored by this. She did a spectacular job in the program reciting this. It looked like she was getting help on two occasions by looking down at the person that was there to help if she struggled, but that lady informed us afterwards that Sarah would just look at her and say something like "Mrs. Murphy now, right?" or "Kylie?" to confirm that she was saying what she had planned to say. Pretty cute. She seems to have an uncanny memory (albeit sometimes selective!) about things at times. Great Job Sarah!

Halloween '08

The kids had a fun Halloween this year. A week or so before Halloween we painted pumpkins. This is the first year we've painted them and I think we'll do this until the kids are older. They seem to enjoy it more because it's more colorful, they get to actually do more of the work and the designing and we like it because it's less messy and doesn't take as long. I hope next year we'll do a little of both. The kids loved "mixing colors", which usually just ends up with most colors looking a tannish gray hue, but they had fun and that's what counts.

Above is Sarah's pumpkin that she painted. You can see that she started with a good face and then just started mixing colors.

As far as costumes go, Sarah chose to be a witch and was excited about getting a little black kitty cat to go with her outfit. Nathan, who has fallen in love (read 2.5 year-old obsession!) with Thomas the Train was able to wear a costume that we borrowed from our friends the Angerbauer's. We also borrowed a Giraffe costume from our friends for Jane as well. All the kids were cute and excited. We went to our church's Trunk or Treat. It was nice because they started early (5:30) so we were actually home a little after 7 pm. The kids are still young enough to just be excited with whatever is in their bag at the end of the night, though I'm sure the days out with friends where they fill large containers full of candy and go out way beyond when anyone answers the door will come in a few years (such fond memories!). I guess that we did get a hint of that this year as Sarah has been so interested in counting her candy and playing with it when Nathan naps (I figured she would end up eating some pieces unless I watched her closely but, no, she just loved sorting and organizing her candy. She really did just want to play with it! Coincidentally, this was something I loved to do with my candy... when I was younger). The kids get a couple of pieces of candy a day and are excited about choosing and often sharing with one another. One thing that was crazy was how warm it was... it had to be in the 60's, which was a really nice break from the usually really cold weather this time of year. We didn't have a Halloween Party like last year, but maybe we'll do that again in the future. Mary and I didn't do anything to dress up this year, no surprise there... I love how the kids enjoy it but I don't really want to dress up, though I would if I had a good costume. Anyway, below is what you really came here to see.

Sarah and Nathan before we headed off to the Trunk or Treat.
Sarah was really excited about counting her candy before she went to bad that night and was pretty pleased with her results.

Bless that...

From Sarah's prayer over her breakfast this morning:
"Bless that the birds will have enough fish to eat and the jaguars will have enough animals to eat... Bless that Jesus can be our bestest King forever and ever, and Heavenly Father too."

After a spell of fairly rote prayers that were brief, fast and straight to the point, she is starting to put more meaning (from our limited adult perspective) into her prayers. We tried to not make the routine/rote prayers an issue and just let her speak to her Father in Heaven however she wanted to (though we did have a Family Night lesson on the subject) and it's nice to see her choosing to be more expressive vocally in her prayers.

A Cure for this Obnoxious (Posted by Mary) Stuff (Posted by Jeff, just to be clear)

I know it's been absolutely abnoxious to have Mary "hijacking" my blog while I was away [and even when I wasn't... the nerve] so I've solved the problem. I changed my password for my log-in so now she no longer has access to my blog. I'll just have to make sure that I sign-out when I'm on the blog and I'll have to log-in each time, which will be a little annoying but it obviously serves a purpose. Okay, so I didn't really shun her, I just finally added her as an "author". So this blog, appropriately, now has two authors... Mary and myself. So, she will no longer have those odd titles to her posts. Instead, if you're curious who authored the post you'll have to look at the bottom of each post to see if it was me, or her. Although, astute readers will quickly be able to identify the different idiosyncracies that we both have in our writing. Anyway, problem solved.
So, let's all welcome Mary, officially, into the blogging world by leaving a comment that mentions one quirk/oddity or something interesting that you know or have observed about Mary (even the lurkers can comment!). She will now be able to leave comments on your blog as well that are actually from her. And the nice thing is that any comment from her is also a comment from me since I taught her how to blog, just remember that ; * ) The pic above is the one that Mary chose for now for her profile picture, the one below is the one that I wanted her to put in there. I guess I'll let her choose such things now that she's an official blogger. Welcome to the HammFamilyFun Blog, Jeff and Mary edition!

Tagged by Karen (posted by MARY)

I was tagged by my Relief Society President (the Women's organization to that all members of our Church belong to). I don't usually receive tags nor respond to them. I usually feel like there are simply more pressing things to do with my time. However, how can I say that to my Relief Society President?? Karen, just so you know, this post might put Jeff over the edge . . . I think he may finally tell me to get my own blog instead of hijacking his. It is probably something akin to never getting my own plate of food and instead just picking off of his whenever I get the urge. Sorry Jeff! But, hey, this first thing is about you . . .

4 Random Things I Love About My Husband:
His heart is pure and he teaches me how to put the Lord first.
He never complains and yet he doesn't criticize me when I do.
He is an awesome father. He devotes his time, attention, and heart to our kiddos.
He scrubs the bathtub, does laundry, cleans the kitchen, goes grocery shopping with Jane in tow, scratches my back - in short - he is a wonderful husband!

4 Jobs I Have Had:
King Charlies Drive In - you couldn't get the grease to wash out of your clothes!
Front Desk Clerk @ Courtyard by Marriott - I really enjoyed this job except for the occasionally irate customer.
Apartment Manager - we did this for 3 1/2 years and I have vowed to never do it again!
Customer Service Rep for an online book seller - this is my current job. I love that I can do this from home and can set my own schedule. I also hate that I do this from home which means that I juggle it between kids, the house and so forth.

4 Movies I Have Watched More Than Once:
The Great Escape
Spanglish
Undercover Blues
Pride and Prejudice

4 TV Shows I Watch:
We have a tv, but we just use it for movies. We do, however, watch The Office online after it airs. I don't recommend it though -the content which is sometimes crude. I have vowed not to watch it anymore, several times - but I simply love the pranks that Jim plays on Dwight - I need to just let it go.

4 People Who Email Me Regularly:
My sister Jenny
Karen - weekly Relief society updates - by the way thanks for this!
My Mom
My co-workers

4 Places I Would Like To Visit:
Seattle - family & friends
Salt Lake - family & friends
Europe
Philippines - where Jeff served his mission

4 Things I Am Looking Forward To This Year
Meeting my little brother's girlfriend - maybe she is the one??
Jane sleeping thru the night - keeping my fingers crossed
Christmas - I simply love this time of year
Jeff's parents, his brother and his wife and baby Mason might visit for Thanksgiving!!

4 People To Tag:
Sorry - this took way to much time and I have a lot to do today - how can I inflict this on anyone else??

Bites, Biting and a Better Way (posted by MARY)

Nathan bit Sarah pretty hard yesterday (see last post for more details on this). There are two places where his teeth actually gouged away her skin. Poor Sarah was having a hard time dealing with the pain and I was having a hard time consoling her since I was nursing Jane. She asked to speak to her daddy - but I knew that he was still attending his conference. Then she asked me to take a picture to send to daddy so he could see it right now. I sypathetically explained that daddy didn't have access to a computer right now and so he can't see the picture. She seemed to accept that. Finally, she asked me to take a picture and put it on our blog. Here is how the rest of the conversation went:


Me: Why do you want me to put it on our blog?

Sarah: (probably thinking to herself that if daddy was here he would inherently understand the need to blog everything especially this) So that everyone can see it my "owy". (Duh, mom - do I have to spell everything out! - where is daddy??)

Me: Why do you want everyone to see it?

Sarah: So they can know that Nathan bit me and that it hurts.

Me: (I am getting pretty curious at this point as to why she (and all of us for that matter) thinks that everyone else knowing about her pain will affect her somehow) How will that help you?

Sarah: So when all the brothers and sisters look at it and see it they will know that it hurts and they will not hurt each other, but make better choices.


Bravo Sarah! I didn't think of that. And so I share the picture of her bite mark with you - and your children. It isn't very clear because the flash kept whiting it out - but I am thinking that you are probably quite content with that :)

I hope that Sarah will learn this lesson too. She just bit Nathan the other day. Sometimes it helps to experience a little bit of the pain that we inflict on others.

Three Crying Children (posted by MARY)

Jeff has been out of town since early Tuesday morning - he will get back late tonight and the kids will get to see him at Church in the morning. These times always give me a greater appreciation for my marvelous husband who always pitches in and gives me sanity. It also reminds me to reach out to single parents. I get overwhelmed within 3 or 4 days - and cannot imagine the struggles of single parenthood.


Jane hasn't been sleeping very well these last few nights, so neither have I. This morning, I finally realized the alarm was beeping at me a full 15 minutes after it had first gone off. I groggily turned it off and collapsed back on my pillow - fast asleep. A few minutes later, I woke up to the sound of Jane crying over the monitor and I was pretty sure I heard Nathan crying as well. I went to his door and confirmed that he was in fact crying, but I realized that Sarah was as well. All 3 of them were crying!! I wasn't sure where to start. I opened Nathan 's door and discovered that he had manged to wet through his diaper. I told him to lay down and stay put. I entered the girls' room and Sarah was crying about a stuffed animal that was M.I.A. Thankfully, I had seen the errant pup earlier in the night when I put Jane back to bed - so I knew where it was. I gave it to her and tucked her in and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then I scooped up Jane who was wailing because she was A) hungry once again B) unbundled and C) wet through. Jane cried while I changed Nathan's diaper and pjs and convinced him to climb back into bed, after I located his blanket, bear and pacifier and kissed him "goodnight". Jane and I gathered up a new outfit, diaper and wipes and made the swap. I settled down to nurse and said my morning prayer at the same time - a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. A few minutes into nursing and prayer, Sarah walked in with an arm full of blankets and a request for pancakes. I managed to convince her to cuddle for awhile instead. Then, in came Nathan demanding breakfast and there is no diverting this boy on a mission for food in the morning. I finally caved in and conceded - my day had begun - it was 6:25 on a Saturday morning. At least no one was crying anymore.


Fast forward to a few hours later - the kids are stuffed, pancakes are made for tomorrow morning so I am hopeful that the kids and I can make it to church on time to spend a few minutes with daddy, the kitchen's clean, the laundry is sorted and a load is running, and I have finally settled down to finalize my lesson plan for Gospel Doctrine. In case you are wondering - the kids are in pjs still and I in my robe :) My thoughts are pulled away from the scriptures by the screams of two willful children - my angels, Nathan and Sarah. With a sigh and a huff - I leave the peace and comfort of the scriptures and join them in the living room. Sarah is wailing, not screaming - wailing because Nathan has bitten her and Nathan is crying because - well I still don't know what happened to him, but I am sure that something did (no one is innocent in our house). As I try to calm them down - Jane joins in on the action. Apparently, she has chosen this moment to decide that she is famished and exhausted. You got it - once again all three are crying again!! Woe is me.


Sparing the details - Nathan and Sarah are not crying now that an hour has passed and tylenol was administered. Jane is napping - at least I think she is because I don't hear her crying. And I can return to my lesson - but first I had to share the joys of my day with you. No wonder why I have become increasingly sensitive to noise lately. I cannot handle it when I am subjected to more than one or two sources of noise at once - like music, kids, AC, the dryer, etc. I crave silence and serenity. I think I am beginning to understand my elders.

Where are we headed??? (posted by MARY)

Perhaps, many of you are not following what is happening in our market and maybe you don't care. I, myself, have become very interested and highly concerned. I believe 100% that very troubled economic times are ahead of us. I do not understand all the complexities of the market, in fact I probably don't understand much of anything, but I do understand that there are ramifications for living beyond your means. I think that the majority of Americans, especially my generation, has no idea what it really means to live beyond your means. It is much easier to recognize it in others than ourselves.

I worry about the future, not so much in the grand scale, but in the details (things like: will we continue to have employment? how much will food and clothing cost?). I am doing everything that I can now to prepare for the future. We are buying clothing for our kids to grow into and continuing to build our food storage. Jeff and I have cut our spending down to the essentials.

You may wonder why I am sharing this with you. Quite simply - I want to urge everyone to take the time to study what is happening to our economy so you can decide the best possible course of action for your family. (I thought that a well known financial analyst, Peter Schiff, did a good job of explaining why the future is rocky, at best, in simple terms in this interview. You can read it here: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/17246/) Honestly, it floors me, when I see the complete stranger buying up a cart full of holiday decorations and party platters.

I am appalled by the bailout package and the fact that our government is buying into private banking institutions. I understand why they are doing it, but that doesn't make it right. Good intentions does not make something inherently good. I hope and pray that we, as a people, understand the basics of capitalism, democracy and our constitution enough that we can stem this tide before it goes too far. My greatest fear is that we won't.

What are your thoughts on this.

Jane is almost 6 months! (posted by MARY)

Our little Jane is growing up too quick for me and perhaps right on schedule for Jeff. He is not a huge fan of the infant stage (0-6 months). He prefers them when they start to interact more and then really enjoys them once they reach 18 months or so. And then they turn willful and not so innocent at 3 - and then their "likability" fluctuates depending on the day, hour, and what they are doing. But don't worry he still always loves them! I hope this is an adequate representation of Jeff. He is out of town for a few days and so I decided to hyjack his blog.



Getting back to Jane . . . she is making some really cute noises which I will not try to replicate, because it wouldn't do them justice. She smiles so readily, but we have to catch her at the right moment to get the giggles. She is getting quite mobile with a combination of rolling, tummy rotating, and she is even getting a lot closer to crawling than I remember Sarah or Nathan getting to at this age. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth until she lets go and allows herself to fall forward - this little maneuver gains a good amount of ground.

Last night I was lying on the floor several feet away from her while she played. Apparently, she decided that she wanted to nurse and made it over to me, before i even realized she was coming. I am not ready to have a crawler and Nathan is definitely not ready to have a crawling sibling!! Poor, little, defenseless Jane is not prepared to enter the battleground of train tracks and car lineups. I thought I would post some pictures of her, that I took over the weekend, before she collects battle scars from Nathan. Maybe, just maybe, Nathan will be patient and gentle, but I'm not counting on it. So here you are . . .

Oh, how I adore our sweet, lovable Jane. What would we do without you??

Final Harvest - '08

So about a week and a half ago, we were watching the temperature forecasts here in the area so we could get our last harvest in before the first big freeze here. So it looked like the temps were getting a little iffy so we decided we had better get in everything that we were still leaving on the vine for freshness and in the hopes that it all might get a little bigger. So, Mary had picked a lot of the stuff earlier in the day and it was up to Sarah, Nathan and I to get the stuff inside. The kids had a lot of fun using their wagon to get the butternut squash to the door where I would bring it inside and wash it.



Here is our butternut squash harvest (something I like a lot more then I thought I would... it's pretty good!
Here is our final pepper harvest, though this wasn't the first and only harvest of fruits for us. We hope to be more successful with these next year as they got a late start and struggled for a while before they got going. So none of them turned red and only some of them turned yellowish. But they were a good size and their were plenty of them.

Boy, we were really glad that we picked what we did. The next morning it did freeze and the plants just completely shut-down, as can be observed above. If you look at the first pic on this post you'll see how full and alive the garden was just 14 hours earlier. I couldn't believe how quickly they died as a result of the freezing temps.
Anyway, we were pretty happy and fortunate with our first garden. We look forward to doing it next year with some tweaks. We now have a freezer full of zuchini (yellow and green), peppers, and some butternut squash. And we also have a whole bunch of spaghetti and butternut squash in our cooler pantry (there's no heat in there so the stuff should last a good part of the winter). It was fun for our whole family and provided some good lessons for the kiddos.

Snow... Already?

Yes, it did snow here... and it was a week ago! So last Sunday [yes, October 12th!] it snowed here in Mtn. Home. CRAZY! Here are some internal dialogues/thoughts about the event for Mary and I:

Jeff {who had just come out of his 2nd meeting of the morning at 8:40am}: Oh, wow, it's snowing, this is crazy! I wonder if Mary is going to take a picture. I should call her and ask her to take a picture so I can blog about this. This is crazy. Wait, I can't call Mary right now... church starts in 20 minutes and she's probably scrambling to get three little kids ready for church and trying to be on time. I can't ask her if she took a picture when she gets here because she'll probably look at me like I'm crazy. She's definitely got her hands full, oh well, I can always just blog about how it snowed and explain why we don't have a picture.

Mary {while Jeff is thinking the above thoughts, Mary is thinking the following ones, while being very busy trying to get three kids ready for church} Oh cool, it's snowing. I bet Jeff would love to get a picture of this for the blog. He can't right now because he's at his meetings, but I know he's thinking about it. I better take a picture of this so he can blog about it.... {click}.

Apparently, this was the earliest snow on record in Mtn. Home. It was snowing pretty good and accumulated fairly quickly... but it only lasted for about 30-45 mins and was bright and sunny by the time we got out of sacrament meeting over an hour later, and all the snow was melted. It's crazy to think that it snowed a week ago because it was at least in the 70's today and has been beautiful this whole week with no forecast for precipitation on the current horizon.

General Conference

The 178th Semi-Annual General Conference for our Church was held on Oct 4-5. WOW! I don't think I've been so amazed by the messages as I was this time. It seemed like there were so many where at the end of the talk I said "I have to read that one right away". I was excited when they came out available on-line last Thursday. I can't wait until the Conference Ensign Magazine is mailed to us in November. Anyway, it's a really enjoyable weekend in several ways:

-Amazing Messages

-Participating in Church Services from home... in my jammies, at least on Saturday.

-No, or at least less yard work

-Family Traditions

We try to make this an event for our little family by doing the following traditions:

POPCORN! We all love it and it is an easy snack (just a little greasy) and keeps the kids sitting with us together watching the conference session. It's a nice tradition and Sarah started reminding us about it as soon as the first session started on Saturday morning. It's nice to have the kids excited about something related to this special event.

We do like to dress up a little on Sundays, even if we're not going to go to church.

The second thing we do is Pizza for dinner on Saturday. We usually get pizza from the store but this year we decided to make our own and the kids enjoyed it. They turned out really good and the kids enjoyed them!

This is a cute story below. While Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was speaking the kids were playing on the floor and having a fun time. During his message he told a really touching story about a boy who crossed a dangerous river on his horse to retrieve his family's cows. Anyway, the boy realized he did something he shouldn't have done in crossing the river and said a prayer. Shortly thereafter his Dad came to him and helped him and likely saved his life. Anyway, as Elder Holland was telling the story, Sarah was playing with some animals on the little shelf that supports our computer monitor. I was watching her play and then started paying attention to what she was playing with. Yep, as the pic below shows, she was playing with a horse, a little farmer and a cow. She then recounted the story to us when we inquired about what she was doing with those figures. Kids are always learning, even (and probably especially) when they're playing!
Anyway, what a GREAT weekend! I look forward to studying up on the inspiring messages!

Tags

So I'm not a big fan of tags generally unless they meet two criteria: 1) easy and/or 2) It sounds fun to me. So basically I don't like them, except when I do. The first time I was tagged, it met criteria two but definitely not criteria one, but I really liked it... so I did it. I have been tagged recently by newer blogging friends and my first tag responded to some of those. So here is a link that responds to that first (and since others) tag. In fact, this is one of my favorite posts that I've written because my sense of humor comes out and some of my quirkiness, which usually doesn't come out unless you've known me for a while... and spent a lot of time with me recently. Anyway, please feel free to read the above link, and leave a comment here or there and I'll feel like you know me a little better.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. I was tagged recently by my sis-in-law, Heather. And this one definitely meets criteria one... so of course it gets done. So here you go:

Oh, and I realized another thing about tags... I don't always follow the rules. So the tag is to pick the fourth folder in your pics section and the fourth picture.

So this is the fourth folder from the end of my pics and the fourth picture. This is a picture of some fruit (lemon, lime, and apple) and two special rocks that I have found over the years. The black one was found, I believe on the beach somewhere in Washington (I can't remember if it was at Banks/Roosevelt Lake in E. WA or on the coast/sound). But it was with my best friend Taylor. The other rock is from the 2nd year of the hike with my brothers and my dad up at Lake Dorothy. They are both very cylindrical, though more of an oval than a true sphere. Anyway, they're remarkable rocks and they served as an analogy for my Marriage and Family Therapy Final Paper/Project/Presentation. I related the rocks to [okay this tag is starting to no longer resemble criteria 1, but is starting to fulfill criteria 2, funny!] my experience in life and in my Master's program in terms of being shaped and molded by the situations that I had the opportunity to be in and the trials I had been through. I also, throughout the paper, had many of the verses to Hymn #85, "How Firm a Foundation" so these two things served as a template/analogy for my experience in my program. Anyway, it's a pic that Mary took of the rocks with the fruit for some contrast or something. So there you go.

Oh yeah, and I don't tag other people, but feel free to do the tag if you want to, it is kind of fun!

Blogging for One Year

Today marks the one year anniversary of me blogging.... which is something that I like WAY more then I would ever have imagined and more than most people know. I would love to be a professional blogger... it would be really cool, but the things I'm interested in blogging about would not interest the general public (except sports). Anyway, I've done well over 150 posts in that one year, which means I post, on average, about once every 2.25 days or so. I would like to do it more, but I don't have time to post about a lot of the quirky things that I learn about or read about... maybe in the future. For now, I'm content with my status as a "family" blogger and I love how it connects me to other people. I'm very grateful for my sister encouraging me to start a blog and being such a faithful supporter (read: commenter). A long time ago she commented that she loves blogs because she gets to know me in a way that she may not get to know me otherwise, and I totally agree. So here's to ONE YEAR of BLOGGING! Hooray... many more to come!