My dad, me and his grandkids

Thirty minutes after my last post a fire broke out in our house. Stephen and I were wrapping Christmas presents and when I stood up to get ready for bed, I noticed the house was full of smoke. Stephen noticed that smoke was coming out of the vents outside of the house and that the attic was full of smoke. We called 911 and they worked for 1 1/2 hours. Thankfully only a wall between the garage and living room burned. There was smoke damage and it has been a wild holiday with people cleaning the air ways in the house, wiping down each item in the house to get the smoke debris  and clean the carpets. We are so fortunate that we were awake as our smoke alarms did not go off. We will have the construction crew here to repair the damage next week.
      I have decided to rewind December. With taking mom to the hospital, putting her on Hospice, dad hospitalized 5 days, finding out he has Multiple Myeloma (cancer in the blood and bone), mom passing away and then the fire and holidays...whew! I'm tired just typing. Not to mention that in my work, December is the busiest month.  It is times like these that I experience God carrying me and although physically being tired, there has been an incredible peace and rest in my heart.I can see the fruit of the past four years of suffering in my life and that is the good news.

Austin and Laura

Me and my little sister

Stephen's favorite picture

Our first Christmas

  

My sister and her family

     Our holidays began with  celebrating with the Maxwell kids and my dad on Dec. 22nd as Price couldn't be home for Christmas. It was fun having everyone home. We had our traditional Christmas Eve Mexican Food feast, communion and the Christmas story. 15 family and friends were a part of this and Christmas Day we had a fish fry with Stephen's son and my sister, brother, and their families. It was a lot of fun although we all missed mom. Stephen and I had a great time cooking together and it was as if we had been together for a long time. I have loved having someone to share the holidays with.
2012 has been a good year in that I have discovered love again and a new life. I look forward to discovering more of God's plan for my life and what is in His heart for me and Stephen and our family. I love a quote by Graham Cooke that describes this year in many ways..."there are no more good days or bad days- just days of grace. Some days you draw on the grace of God to get by and others you simply enjoy it." 46,981