Snavley Freebirds

I think this is the longest I have ever went without blogging. So much has gone on this last month it is hard to know where to begin. I will try and keep it brief.

The first part of December was spent putting together a gingerbread house for the yoga studio. The City of Palmer had a contest with the downtown businesses and Heather and I volunteered to make one for the studio. It was a lot of fun and VERY time consuming. We figure we have about 14 hours total into the house.

I finished my yoga teacher training on December 14!! I am officially a certified yoga instructor. The only thing left to do is to send my certificiation, along with my fees, to Yoga Alliance and I will be registered. It has been a very positive experience and a time of some major personal growth. I'm working with some incredibly wonderful people and am very happy in where I am at in my life.

Around the same time I was finishing my teacher training our septic backed up and flooded our basement. What we thought was going to be a simple carpet cleaning and a day digging up our septic turned into a major remodel project in the basement. Turns out we had a mold problem and everything had to be ripped out, including some sheetrock and studs. The good thing about it is the insurance paid us enough money to finish our entire basement. We had started on a remodel project that we were unable to finish because we ran out of money so now we can finish it!! So..... blessing in disguise. It hasn't been fun but in the long run we will be thankful.

Calista's birthday was Tuesday so I took her, Rylee (her cousin), and Haley (her good friend) into Anchorage for the day. We went to Red Robin's for lunch and had the crew sing to her, shopping at the mall, and then to the theatre to watch Enchanted. Last night we had the family over for cake and ice cream. It was also Dina's birthday (her dog) so we had a puppy party.

Of course, we have had the normal last minute shopping trips, trying to make Christmas a special day for the kids. I'm not a big fan of Christmas but it is enjoyable to watch the kids get excited. We've had this incredible young girl that has been spending much of her time over at our house, including overnight most weekends. Her home life isn't exactly peachy keen and we wanted to make this Christmas memorable for her. We (our family, Murphy family, and the Walker family) filled a stocking, plus a bag full of things that she loves, and at the very bottom of the stocking we had an i pod. She wouldn't have dreamed of even putting something like that on her list because I don't think she could have even imagined something like that was within her reach. She lifted it out of the stocking, was a little stunned, almost as if she thought it was a pretend one, and then it sunk in and she started to cry. It was so fun to make her smile and excited about the holidays. Those are the kinds of moments that I live for. She couldn't quit saying thank you the entire evening and we definitely made her year special.

Today I'm off to my sisters to do laundry. My laundry room is in the basement, unfortunately, so it won't be put back together for at least another week.

Merry Christmas to everyone!!