After Christmas...

Randy left for Cambodia on the 1st, but we packed a lot of fun in between Christmas and New Year's!

Before we left Ft. Worth, I got to have a girls' night with Amy, Courtney, and Michelle. It's so crazy to me that we have been friends for 15 years now and I'm so thankful for how often we are able to all get together. We went to Southlake, had a great dinner at Cheesecake Factory, did a little shopping, stayed in the hotel there in the town center, woke up and went to brunch. It was just great being together and catching up. We were all amazed at Amy - she was 11 days from having sweet Vivian Ann! Such a fun night!

We drove back to Lake Jackson on the 28th, and then on the 29th we went to Galveston to see Alden and Scott, Stephen, and Kevin and Jan! We watched the Aggies in their bowl game, the Sanders came, the kids played, and we ate great food all day. It was a lot of fun to get to see everyone and hang out. They even had presents for the girls and us! So sweet! Love them!

And then, on the 31st, we got to see the Beams! They came to Texas for about 3 weeks in December and January, and were in Lake Jackson for 4 days. On New Year's Eve, we went to the Henderson's with the Beams, Sanders, and Mitterlings, and it was so fun to get to all be together. It is crazy to us that there are now 16 kids between our 5 families. We got to meet Lincoln for the first time - the Beams' new son! He and Calli had a little dinner date. :)

All the kids minus Kate and Savannah, who were already asleep!

 

These girls are such precious friends to me! And they also forgot to give me the scarf memo. :) I'm so thankful for all the girls God has blessed me with to be my friends. The bandits, the baby mamas, and so many other friends who encourage me, teach me, and love me so well as we walk this road together. It is far more than I deserve and I am so grateful.  

 

It was also a little hectic before Randy left for Cambodia. On the 30th, Randy met Scott for breakfast and felt some kind of spasm in his back. He could hardly stand up and walk out to his car and drive home. He spent all day on the 30th in bed, not able to move. We started getting pretty worried about him making the trip on the 1st. On the 31st, we started making plans for Randy to pass the trip off to some guys who had been before, because he still couldn't move. Scott H got in touch with a friend of his who is a chiropractor and he saw Randy. He did one small adjustment, said it was very inflamed, and gave him some cream and an ice pack. He asked Randy to walk back through the past few days, and determined that it was all the water slides he did at Great Wolf Lodge. Then a 6 hour car ride home, and it just took about 48 hours to show up. Randy was able to party with us that night, and then wake up on the 1st, pack for the trip, and lead the team! I was pretty worried about the 30 hours of travel, but he did ok and gradually got better over the course of the 2 weeks he was gone. We were thankful he was able to go, but we missed him so much while he was gone! It was nice to have these four days at home before he left for so long!