December 18, 2020 - The Christmas Update

 First I want to wish all of you a Very Merry Christmas and for my Jewish friends I wish you a very wonderful end to the Hanukkah Holiday! 

Well, 2020 has been quite a year hasn't it? Let me just say OH. MY. GOD!!!! 😱

I'm praying and hoping that 2021 is a lot better year for all of us than 2020 was but I'll admit that I'm worried about the USA maybe going socialist. That won't end well. 

Around here we're still missing Christie. I don't know how other people handle things but for us it seemed that after we got past the anniversary of her passing we started to focus more on the future. Going through birthdays and holidays without her for the first time was hard but it's not so hard the second time. It's not that we don't miss her and love her but the healing has to start sometime. Christie's tree is growing just fine and it's close to twenty feet tall now. 

We finally have a teenager in the house now that Eric had his 13th birthday! Crazy times ahead with more teenagers coming along in the next few years! Eric is awesome and has become one of those quiet ranch guys who gets things done and doesn't make a big deal about it. He drives the trucks and heavy equipment around the ranch and does just fine with it all. 

Steve is doing pretty good and one of the weird things about the flu has been he got more work! A lot of places decided that with less traffic on the roads it was a good time to do road work. I wish he had more work locally but it seems that it's a few companies that get all the work in Wyoming so he mostly works in Texas and then Colorado. 

My oldest girls turned 10 this year and it's crazy to think they're closer to being 18 than I am! That's scary for me in more ways than one! 

I don't think I posted this in the blog before but last year I started trying for my pilot license. I've flown our old plane when we still had it and that was fun so when Steve and Christie talked about getting another plane I wanted to learn how to be a pilot. It wasn't so hard but it is weird getting used to how people talk with air traffic control! It's weird not saying hello but they don't mind when you say thank you! 

Last year Christie got a deal for an old twin engine plane and she and Steve bought it. They flew it home and then it had to go in the shop for a big overhaul and the control panel got a major upgrade. It's a glass control panel now and it's easy to use once you get used to it. It's a lot less cluttered than the old gauges and dials and a lot less confusing and distracting when you're in the air. A few months ago I got checked out on it and got my multi-engine certification and it is one of my best personal accomplishments since culinary school! The big yikes in the checkout was when the port engine got cut and I had to make an approach. I did it just like I was taught and it was all good! 

Amy, Cydne, and myself all are expecting additions to the family next year. Macy is working on it. Between Christie passing away and Steve being away for work a lot there wasn't much romance going on until this last spring. The babies on the way are sad in a way because they'll never get to know Christie. 

I'm still running my herd of chickens and we're down to about three hundred of them right now. The bison are doing well but we did have a weird thing where we had one of them get shot. There was a vet visit and a little surgery but he's fine now. Just weird and outrageous that someone would shoot an animal for no reason. 

We've had a few foxes around which reminded me of the nice fox that used to visit when we first moved here. I like to think these foxes are her kids and grandkids and they get a pass on coming through the place. 

That's how things are doing and I hope all of you are doing great and looking forward to 2021! 

Love, Megan