Merry Christmas 2016-----a year of scary!

Merry Christmas everybody!  I found myself with a few minutes here at the end of the day and I thought it might be a good time to compose and publish our annual Christmas “newsletter-turned-blog!”  When I started to look through the pictures from our events of the past year I found that they mostly all had one thing in common------they’re SCARY!  The year 2016 has been a SCARY year on so many levels.

WHY am I writing about our year as a scary one?  Well, it all started when I went out of town. (As my stories mostly do).  Last month I flew to Philadelphia for a week to attend our annual national convention.  While I was out of town, James and the boys thought they would surprise me by gutting and remodeling the main bathroom in our home.  After a week of travel I returned home exhausted to find this

If you speak with me very often you know that I’m noted for saying that I’m still married after all of these years in large part because I have my own bathroom in the house.  However, since they decided to “surprise me” by taking on a little DIY home project they had ALL moved into MY bathroom.  So, when I arrived home ready to unpack and take a shower, my sink looked like this...............

Um, so yea, as an additional piece to the "surprise" James directed the two teen age boys to DECORATE THE ENTIRE HOUSE FOR CHRISTMAS ON THEIR OWN while he worked to remodel the bathroom. Now when I left for my trip, the “autumn” decor was still up as my trip was the week before Thanksgiving.  I arrived home to find our dining room table looking like this:

Friends, until you’ve looked at your dining room table and spotted empty tubes of tooth paste next to ceramic pumpkins in-between fragile Christmas ornaments stuffed inside wicker turkeys standing on cans of athlete's foot spray with mouthwash slightly spilled onto all of it, you’ve not really seen SCARY in your house!! I could seriously spend all night writing about that singular example of scariness but then I wouldn’t be able to share all of the many other family events that were scary so I will leave you to yourselves to imagine how the rest of my home looked. 

I’ve decided to start last January and work my way through the year for to do otherwise would prove to be scary in that I’m likely to start talking about things that happened 10 years ago.  My memory is going FAST!!  After all, I will be 50 in June of next year.  I decided to get ready for that milestone 18 months in advance when some of you may remember me blogging about my “road to 50” campaign.  I’ve accomplished many good things in preparing for my big 5-0 though it's scary how far behind I am in blogging about it.  Maybe I’ll catch up by my actual birthday?!

  

One of the things I decided to do prior to turning 50 was to get BRACES!  (Yea, I’m serious) Later this year Adam got braces too which made him wearing braces at the same time as his 49 year old mother.  SCARY!!  

Adam played basketball during the first several months this year and I find it scary that he was so much taller than his teammates.  (Not to mention its MY kid of course who is shoving pizza into his face as his coach talks to them).  

While less scary, Alex played tennis and football and greatly enjoyed both. 

Speaking of football, Adam played as well this year and ended up with a concussion during his last game.  Needless to say-----VERY scary.  Maybe he couldn’t see because his glasses were so dark?! 

Everyone got another year older.  Alex turned 16 and got his driver’s license and a truck. 

  This year on their first day, Alex drove Adam to school!  SCARY!  I made them stand for a picture before they "took off mom!"

James and I attended a fundraiser at the Catholic Newman Center with some friends and had our picture taken with Elvis--Scary!!

Alex celebrated his 16th birthday by  riding  12 different roller coasters with scary names with his friend Casey at Cedar Point in Ohio.  SCARY!  

Adam turned 12 and celebrated by having a paintball party where they dressed up like this

Easter came and went and we invited my friends and their little children over to paint Easter eggs.

  

The next day it was scary that in the group photo my boys have grown SO MUCH over the years that they look out of place with other “little” kids.

We spent a week in Florida this year and celebrated 4 family birthdays while there---SCARY to try and keep track of all of that.  

While in Florida we spent some time at Universal Studios.  While there with James brother Jason we saw the Blues Brothers and were scared that the boys had no idea who they were.  (We have since rectified that little oversight)

We also found the platform to Hogwarts and took a train ride over there.  Its scary that place is REAL!  

This next picture from our time at universal is scary all by itself!  

Moving on into late spring and summer I found that my kids were murderers.  On hunting trips Alex killed a wild boar and Adam took a turkey’s life.  SCARY! 

In mid summer we celebrated the retirement of our department chair, Paula.  She had been teaching for 29 years.  I'm now the one in this picture who has been around the CMDS department the longest—25 years---SCARY!  

We also went up to Michigan for a family wedding this summer.  The scary part of this picture is that the girl in white was JUST BORN when James and I started dating.  Our first trip together was to Michigan to see her right after she was born.  SCARY!!  

The boys had fun hanging out with their cousins although its slightly scary that Alex is as tall as his adult cousin.  

Cousin Kendal trusted the boys enough to read at her wedding.  SCARY.  

We went to the lake a few times this summer with the kids and their friends and cousins.  It was SCARY to turn them loose in the van!

In the late summer we celebrated my dad’s 70^th birthday.  (Have I mentioned that this means I’m headed for 50 which is scary?!)

Alex is old enough to have a girlfriend which is scary.  He and Abby have been out having fun together this year.

When school started this year we found we had a junior in high school

                                                                      and a 7^th grader. 

This means next year we will have a high school graduate and an 8^th grade graduate.  That idea flies by scary and dives head first into TERRIFYING!!!!!

My friend Ilene trusted me enough this fall to serve as her baby’s Godmother.  Scary that I’ve never done that before.    

We continue to have THREE dogs that live INSIDE our house and run the place.  

 The scary part is that they can't figure out whose bed is whose. 

They also don’t have the sense to keep their food dish out of the bed with them.

Earlier this school year, Adam was selected to be the student optimist of the month for the Kirksville Optimist Club chapter.  When we told him he said “dad, I didn’t know Hendlers could be optimistic”---scary!!

This fall James and I celebrated our 19^th wedding anniversary which means next year we will have been married 20 years.  SCARY!!!

Time keeps marching on and everyday I see more and more of James in each of the boys---SCARY.  

They are growing up SO FAST!!  IT IS SCARY!!!!!!

Scarier yet is that this is the family they were born into.................

Scary as life has been this year, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.  We continue to hang in there everyday and find humor in all of the chaos.  It would be scary if we didn’t!  Merry Christmas from my scary but lovable  family to yours!