Christmas 2020

 Normally our two week Christmas break fly's by super fast!! This year was quite a bit different. 

Thanks to COVID, the Canadian borders are still closed so we aren't able to go up and see family. We had just seen most of the Hoefakker family at Thanksgiving, so we stayed home for Christmas. Not only did we stay at home for Christmas, but normally this two week break is full of basketball games and tournaments. Since there are still no sports happening we didn't have any of that either. In some ways, the quiet relaxed days were nice but I would trade it in a heartbeat to have our regular activities back again.

We haven't entertained at our house in a very long time. This year we decided to have a cookie decorating Christmas cocktail party:) We had an absolute blast and I can see it becoming a tradition.

We forgot to take any pictures on Christmas day:/ I had great intentions of taking a family picture since Chris and Brandi were here as well but.....oh well. 

We may have forgotten to take family pictures but we got the dog pictures done:)

Apparently, something blew her mind!

Brandi and Aydan hadn't hung out in a few years. It was so fun to watch them together again!

A great game of Spoons may have gotten a little too physical

Lots of cookies to decorate

I think this is the only picture I got of Christmas day!

Brandi & Chris got a great picture together when they were at the Powell family Christmas.

 Thanksgiving 2020

What a year it's been. It may seem like 2020 doesn't leave us a lot to be thankful for but the truth is, even in the midst of all the political chaos, angry people, cancelled church, trips, schools, sporting events etc. there is sooo much to be thankful for!! 5 years ago, two days before thanksgiving I was diagnosed with cancer. To be here 5 years later in good health is a huge reason for thankfulness. To have our family and friends together, and have lots of extra family time these last several months has shown that quarantine 2020 is not completely negative!

Since the border is closed and we can't go stay with Oma, we had booked a condo in Birch bay for a few nights. We were all planning on going up but then a few days before we were going to leave, Brandi was diagnosed with COVID:/ Since Ashley and Kendra had just been down there the week before we thought we better be a little extra careful and we decided to have dinner with just our family at the condo. Then we headed over to Ken and Evelyn's to have a 'socially distanced' desert:) 

While we were in Birch Bay we were able to meet up with Amy Hoefakker a couple of times who was living in Birch bay as well. That was pretty awesome to be able to see her!

Many hours were spent trying to get this puzzle done! Lisa Veloz came and helped us one night

By complete coincidence, Chris Veloz's family also was at Birch Bay the same time we were!

Wenatchee basketball camp

There was a high school basketball camp scheduled for Wenatchee but unfortunately, a number of girls dropped out. Because so many girls dropped out we lost our 'classroom' that the girls were going to stay in. We also ended up only having enough girls for one team. BUT....it all worked out for the best because it was such a FUN camp!! We only had 7 players, and mostly young players! But all the girls got along great, there was no diva's, no drama, no whining and complaining (from parents or players:) We ended up camping at the Chelan County fair grounds with the Cox's, the Blair's, and Kyler. It was a lot of fun! The girls even got to enjoy an afternoon at the waterslides in Chelan! The dads went along on that trip while us mom's headed back to the campers so I didn't get any good pictures of the waterslides.
The girls played hard and beat some pretty big schools! They were very intimidated to be playing their first game against Lynden Christian but ended up beating them by quite a bit!  They only lost one game, and that was in OT.

Making smores over the campfire

Bryce trying to stay warm

Enjoying some snacks and down time in between games

Bryce and Bob became great friends 

And spent a lot of time together......

Fun on the river with Old Faithful

Our trusty old bayliner just keeps running like a top:) The kids frequently complain that we need to update our boat to something with a wakeboard tower but that is not going to happen anytime soon. The last few years we've only taken the boat out two or three times a year so it would be really hard to justify having an expensive boat sitting there that's not getting used!! Bob hauled the boat out of storage on Thursday (july 4th) and got it cleaned up and ready to go for the season again. Friday afternoon we headed off to Levy for a couple of hours of fun. 

Tyler and Jacob Rainer getting ready to tube

Kendra 'encouraging' Kambree to jump on in

We be flexin'

Tyler and Jacob getting up on kneeboards

Kendra learning how to drive the boat

Filling up my punch card...

It's been awhile since I've been in a hospital so......why not go for another round?
My back had been bothering me off and on for awhile, but that's nothing new and I didn't think a whole lot of it. Then one night I had a hard time sleeping because my lower right back just felt swollen. It kind of bothered me off and on all day. Around 6 I finally said something to Bob and brought up the idea that we may have to go see a Dr.  But, then I figured maybe I could just rest and sleep it off. I'm always afraid of going in and the dr's thinking that I'm some sort of hypochondriac or something because my chart is so thick! About 1am I gave up on sleeping and finally admitted to myself that I was going to need some help with this one. I woke up Brandi and asked her to drive me to the ER. I didn't want to have Bob bring me because I figured he may as well get some sleep since he had to work in the morning. Once at the ER they did a bunch of the regular tests and discovered that I had a stone completely blocking my ureter tube and an infection. They decided that I needed to be transferred to Virginia Mason in Yakima and have surgery ASAP.  I tried to convince them to just let me drive to Yakima but they weren't having it:/ So we woke up Bob, who got down to Prosser shortly before the transport arrived and he followed the ambulance down to Yakima. The driver had a bit of a led foot and Bob wasn't able to keep up with them on the freeway but was able to catch up by the time we got to the hospital. They brought me straight into pre-op and within 30 minutes we were in surgery! They put a stent into the ureter tube and were able to blast the stone with lithotripsy. They left the stent in and we were back home again by 9:30am:) On Tuesday I went in to have the stent removed and was warned that in about 15% of the cases, once the stent was removed their could be significant swelling in the tube which could cause things to shut down again. Sure enough, that night I ended up back in the ER with the ureter tube swollen completely shut again and preventing the kidney from draining. Some more tests, some anti-inflammatory's and some pain meds and 5 hours later we were back at home again. One of the things I always dread about medical procedures is the IV/blood work. My veins are just not cooperative and it usually takes a few attempts and some talented lab people to get the job done.