Snavley Freebirds

I promise I have not given up on blogging:)

My computer got dropped a couple of weeks before Christmas and the display quit working. I could see the display in the right light but there was no backlight. After ordering a couple of parts trying to troubleshoot what the problem was it ended up being the actual backlight. It's a tiny, tiny bulb that looks like a miniature version of a long fluorescent bulb. We got the part in only to realize that some soldering has to be done. The long story short of it is that Martin hasn't had the time to sit and solder it so I've been doing most everything from my phone, with occasional chances to slip in on Martin's computer.

We had an awesome Christmas, the Christmas of all Christmases that I promised the kids:) My younger sister and her family, and my dad and his wife, came over in the morning for breakfast and gift opening and then in the afternoon we met some good friends (the Eries) up at Hatchers Pass for sledding. After the kids got that out of their systems we all came back over to our house for sandwiches and hot chocolate. New Years we spent with the Eries as well; just a nice relaxing evening munching on food and hanging out.

January has been mostly uneventful. The kids have been swimming a lot and we've had two meets this year. We head up to Fairbanks this Friday for a championship meet that Kev is competing in. We've had some car problems this month and are trying to figure out whether we want to buy a new car or not. Martin's car (the one we are both driving right now) is in the shop right now getting a new clutch put in. Then yesterday, as we were driving Kev's car around, his heater motor went out so we've been driving in a very cold car. When we pick Martin's car up we will drop Kev's car off:) If Martin's car doesn't get done by Friday we aren't sure what we are going to do for transportation up to Fairbanks.

We are catching up on some much needed dental work. Calista has never been to the dentist (11 years old) and the boys haven't been for a very long time. We don't have insurance so we don't go unless problems arise. That's coming to bite me in the butt right now. Thankfully, we are in a good financial position to be able to pay for it all because it's costing us a pretty penny. More appointments tomorrow, yay! We found out a couple of weeks ago that Kev has kidney stones. He's been experiencing some kidney pain so our doctor thought we should go in and have an ultrasound, which revealed stones. We are going through some tests to try and figure out what is causing them and of course, waiting for them to pass. I was also diagnosed with scoliosis after months of a very achy back. Not sure why it's just catching up with me at 37 years old but.... After several adjustments I'm feeling back to my good ol' self:)

I've been busy training for some triathalons. My goal is to do 3-4 this summer. I'm already registered for one and am waiting for another one to open up for registration. I am really LOVING the swimming part and realizing that maybe the kids get their love of water from me! I've mostly been running and swimming; going to add the biking here in a couple of weeks. Ren said I could have her road bike, since she is not planning on doing anymore triathalons, so now we just have to figure out our shipping method to get it up here:)

Other than that, not much new around here. Tonight we had a houseful of happy, spunky kids. Tristan had all of his good buddies over and Calista had some girlfriends for a "movie night". The boys ended up walking to the arcade that is about 2 miles from our house, in 10 degrees! Brrrr!!