2012

Wow.  Four weeks into 2012 and I haven't even written one blog post about the new year yet.  It's been a hectic four weeks.  I hope that isn't an indication of how this entire year will go.

2012 started out well.  As seen in my last post, we spent a fun New Year's Eve Day with family, celebrating a belated Christmas together.  Then around 6:00 that evening Dylan, Ed, and I checked into our hotel room.

We got a nice suite of rooms at Springhill Suites in Chandler, just south of west Mesa.  ($50 through priceline.com, which I thought was a good price for a last-minute room on New Year's Eve.) 

My only complaint would be that the bed was not very comfortable.  It was much too soft, causing Ed to roll toward the middle and me to cling to the edge!

We didn't spend too much time there, though.  After about an hour, we went to Carl's Jr. for dinner.  That's my favorite fast-food restaurant, which has no franchises in the White Mountains, so it's a real treat for me when we visit Mesa.  I love their Super Star burger served as a low-carb lettuce-wrap. 

Dylan makes a figure eight with his sparkler.

After dinner, we went to my sister Karla's house to see in the New Year with her family and ours.  After 31 years in Arizona under strict NO FIREWORKS laws, the laws have finally been relaxed a bit, and our kids got to enjoy the sparklers like we used to love as kids in California of the 1960s and 70s. 

Jaycee carefully tries out her sparkler.

Dylan and his sparkler.

Analyce, Chris, Dylan, Sarah, and Celesta in the smoky aftermath.

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Karla's son-in-law Scott bought up all the legal fireworks on the market and put on quite an exciting show for us in the driveway.  So did several of Karla's neighbors (in their own yards).  It was a blast!

So we've survived the first month of 2012.  To hear some tell it, we'd better make the most of this year since the Mayan calendar supposedly predicts the world is doomed to end on December 21, 2012.  What do you think?  Personally, I think there is only so much room to carve dates on a rock!

The Mayans did an incredible job of calendaring 5,126 years of astronomical events(beginning in 3114 BC), and their "13th cycle" will indeed end on December 21, 2012 (which may be off by 60 days to 100 years, depending upon which "expert" you listen to).  Still, as brilliant as they were, the Mayans were mere humans working with limited space!

Nonetheless, I intend to make the most of 2012...just in case!  It will be a year of great things.  It will be Chris and Sarah's first full year as a married couple, celebrating their first anniversay on July 30th.  Dylan will start high school as a freshman in August, meaning I'll get to have one of my children at my school again for the next 4 years (I've missed that.)  Jacob will return from his mission in California in November, just a little over 9 months away!  And after Jacob returns home, the greatest event of all will happen: Ed and I will go to the temple to be sealed for eternity to Sarah, Jacob, and Dylan.  I have looked forward to that day for many, many years.

I wish a wonderful 2012 to you and yours, too, filled with the most wonderful blessings you can imagine!