A new year already?

I guess 7 months is an ample break from blogging. Life somehow got extremely crazy and blogging felt far too overwhelming. A quick catch up from our summer -

1. we made oodles of strawberry freezer jam (by oodles I mean 27lbs worth of freshly picked strawberries turning into a freezer full or delicious jam)
2. We helped one of my favorite people (Denae) move into her new house in Minnesota and camped out at her house for 3weeks.
3. We drove home from Minnesota with Denae and kids following us for 2 more weeks of partying and not doing housework!
4. I shopped and shopped and shopped some more for a solid green dress only to end up dying a white dress green.
5. I drove across the country some more for Carrie's wedding shower, wedding, and the most fun little nieces ever!! Utah was a blast!
6. School started- we were a week late getting home from our trip and my kids actually got mad at me for making them miss 5 whole days!! What kids don't want to skip school to visit grandma??

After our jam packed summer of vacationing and partying we arrived home the day before another visit from Denae. Man I love that we are only 9 hours away!! (12 hours if you are Denae, she drives like a grandma!!) While Denae and her kids were here we got some awful news. Silas lost his job. I'm kinda ashamed to admit, but I never thought that would happen to us. I guess I live in la-la land quite a bit because its easier that way. This loss of employment came as a huge shock for us the day before our 11th anniversary. Needless to say, we didn't go on the gondola ride and picnic downtown that I had planned. Instead we opted for a much less expensive picnic at our neighborhood park. I have to say that this was probably my favorite anniversary celebration yet even though it was a stressful and depressing time. It was nice just to spend some time with Silas. The 3 months without work were so hard for both of us. I pretty much just fell off the planet and stayed in my cave (house) feeling down and stressed. Silas felt the same. Because we needed insurance and an income I started the month long of training to become a school bus driver. Silas continued to look for a job as well as started up a long awaited family company of rental properties. We are now the Pres. and VP of Moutaintop Investments, LLC. We purchased 8 rental homes (along with our investors, come on, we were unemployed!!) and started on renovations. Just after Sy got busy with all the properties he got a new job!! Yeah!!! He is now working at Roche at the manufacturing plant here in Fishers. We went from no jobs to 3 jobs when you include my new hobby (with benefits) driving bus 126. This has been quite the adjustment schedule wise but so far all of our jobs are going really well. We enjoyed a super fun visit from Mandy and her family for Thanksgiving. The arrived just hours after we got Silas' job offer. I just love my baby girls, Edie and Allison, and wish that we could see them more often. We also had a fun visit from my Aunt Linda and my cousin Heather with their kids over Thanksgiving. Christmas came and went very quickly this year. I felt so much more grateful this year and did far better with my budget then ever before! It's funny how hard things we go through can shape us as people so quickly!

So its already 2009! I was released from the Enrichment Committee at church and started teaching the 11 year old girls Sunday school class. This is the last class that the girls are in before they start young women's so I feel a little bit more in my comfort zone. My only problem with this class is that Madison is in it. Its not that I don't want to be her teacher, its just that I can't believe that she is already this old! She is just my baby!! I have a really fun group of girls and I'm excited to be with them. Maddy was saying something to me today about how I was in high school "like 20 years ago"! I DON'T THINK SO!! It has only been 13!! I'm old!! I can remember thinking people at age 31 were so OLD!!

So this pretty much wraps up the Smith house happenings for now. I have grand visions of going back and doing real entries about all the great stuff we did in the last 7 months but I have to start somewhere. All I can say is that it feels good to be back!