Update... the rest of 2015

We celebrated Tyler's 30th birthday in March! Jessie, Scott and Emily came over to share some cake.

We visited Amber and family at Easter. We drove to VA, spent a few days and then headed to Florida. The Porters after (or maybe before) our Easter hunt.

Quinn and Beri showing off their treasures from the hunt!

At the playground.

Easter dresses after church.

Quinn with her "Easter present". She was excited!

In June, Amber and the girls came to Michigan for a visit, just in time for my Birthday!

We also made a trip to the zoo and fed the giraffes.

In July I had my knee surgery on my torn miniscus. Sorry, no pics. The recovery wasn't too bad but the results weren't as good as I hoped. The damage was worse than they thought so more miniscus was removed than originally planned. In one spot they removed 60% so I have bone on bone now and it still causes pain from time to time. The next step will be a knee replacement but hopefully that can wait a few years. Also in July we purchased a new car, a Jeep! We've already had it on several road trips and it's a dream to drive! It has everything you could want in a car!

In August we went to the beach with Amber and family for our week at Camelot. A great time was had by all!! We stopped to visit Elaine and LeeRoy first, of course.

Bo and Kim came over to visit one day, along with Stokes and Lilly.

Kite flying and looking for shells were high on the list of fun activities!

Watching the sun set was always a hit! Beri was very tired by this time of night but she was a trooper!

Andy, relaxing. ;-)

It was a great week spent making great memories! Love spending time with those little girls too!!

September brought Scott's 27th Birthday and the start to school.

It was a rough start to the school year for me. We got a new principal and I struggled with finding my place with a new principal and lots of changes. Things have smoothed out a little but I have also adopted a new attitude about my job and the future. Quinn started kindergarten and is excelling! She loves it!

Berit started pre-school. She's not loving it quite as much as Quinn loves it. She cries every time Amber leaves but then she's fine 5 minutes later!

October brought some really big changes. In mid-October Howard accepted a package from Bosch and "retired". He has spent the last couple months getting all his paper work in order and figuring out what we are going to do with the rest of our lives. October also brought a trip to Virginia for me. While there Amber took me to The Kennedy Center to see the Carole King musical, Beautiful. It was a wonderful time!

November is a blur. I can't remember anything about November except we had a really big snow, almost a foot. And we had Thanksgiving but that is a bit of a blur also. We had Tyler and Jessie and Scott over for dinner.

December was spent just making plans to go to Virginia to visit the Porters for a few days before Christmas. We were going to celebrate an early Christmas with them before they headed to Michigan to visit the Porter side of the family and we headed to Florida for a visit and to look around at different areas where we plan to retire! The day we were leaving we received terrible news that our niece, Maitland, Howard's youngest brother's oldest daughter, was killed in a small plane crash the night before. The next few days were a blur and trying to make plans while driving to Virginia. We left Friday afternoon, spent the night in Ohio then finished the trip on Saturday. Sunday was our "Christmas" with opening gifts, eating dinner at El Paso Cafe, a surprise to the top of the Washington Monument and a nice family day.

This is the view of the White House from the top of the Washington Monument! What a view!

On Monday morning Howard, Amber and I flew to Orlando for Maitland's funeral service. It was such a tough day, so sad, so tear-filled. She was a sweet, beautiful spirit and was taken from her family far too soon. Everyone is struggling, especially Bo, Kim, Stokes and Lilly, of course. RIP sweet Maitland.

On Monday night we flew back to Virginia, spent Tuesday there and then started driving to Florida on Wednesday. We arrived at Sharon's on Christmas Eve and spent a quiet night there. The weather was incredibly warm in Florida, 85 degrees on Christmas day!

These 3 kept us entertained.

Christmas morning we drove back up to Orlando to spend the day with Bo, Kim and the kids. A few of their friends were over there as well. It was a tough day but we tried to make the best of it. Somehow Kim and Bo prepared a delicious, untradational Christmas dinner that we enjoyed next to the pool.

The rest of the week there was spent looking at areas where we might want to live, Howard helping Sharon around the house, fixing ceiling fans, lawn mowers, etc., meeting with a Realtor and finally the last day a trip over to Camelot to walk on the beach and swim in the pool. Another beautiful day!

Something you don't see every (any) day, a barefoot nun, walking on the beach!

We left Florida Thursday morning, drove New Year's Eve day and New Year's Day. The only good thing about that was that traffic was pretty light and no problems.

Things were good at home, no problems there either, just freezing cold and gray! So, all caught up. We'll see who reads this or notices that I've updated. Happy 2016!!