Long December or Christmas X (You Pick)

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of celebration. It was the age of frustration. It was the end. It was the beginning.

It's been a while since we blogged; Gauging by the number of significant events that have passed in our family's life I would say it has been a long while- like maybe a year. I do not have the energy left to paint the complex picture so let me use the most beloved literary tool of our time: the list.



A Christmas list if you will (in chronological order):

1. Cameron finished his career as a landscaper.
2. We said goodbye to all our dear friends in New England (you know who you are!)
3. We finished Cameron's 50+ page final project on spiritual growth (I'll add a link to it later for the brave and desperate...)
4. Josiah got the croup.
5. We spend two days moving out of our 2 bedroom apartment.
6. We broke down.
7. We pleaded for help from God and our friends.
8. We gave away over half of all that we owned.
9. We broke down again.
10. In the last hour before we had to leave for the airport (5 pm eastern) an army of friends, neighbors and strangers showed up from Lord knows where to help move and clean everything.(This was a true miracle to us!)
11. We praised God. (And we would like to give a special thanks to Clay- who packed our whole truck- The Bakers who watched our kids- Kristin- who cleaned and drove us and Jodie who cleaned things I don't even want to talk about)
12. We barely made our flight and got nearly no sleep on our 12 hours of travel.
13. We partially moved back into Grandpa Bebe and Grandma Dede Lemons' home in Temecula.
14. We rejoiced to be back with our wonderful family.
15. We took our first train up to Ventura (picture above) and rejoiced with more family.
16. Josiah began throwing up (once in dad's mouth!!!) and flooding diapers.
17. He passed this plague onto 12 family members in the course of 4 days!

18. We celebrated the annual Olson Christmas program with Jen's family and the boys started opening gifts (Picture of Josiah with cousin Ian below).
19. We returned to Temecula and the boys kept opening.
20. We saw nearly every Todd in the western USA at the Lemons, and yes, the boys are still opening presents.



We are now in the middle of Operation Recuperation and moving on to Operation Reschedule. Josiah is finally getting over his diseases, praise the Lord. The boys are spending a good deal of the night crying for their old familiar home, so we have a long way to go to get back on a steady schedule; but with the help of family we are starting to feel rested. We are enjoying beautiful California and are excited to be here. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers (and patience with our blogging!).