With my expanding family I gave myself permission last year to change up the birthday posts a bit – bcs it gets pretty intense between the months of May and July (we had two new additions to the family last year that both celebrate birthdays in May!) And we have a small winter cluster with Shannon on Jan 24th and then upcoming birthdays for Josh and my mom in February. So Shannon officially kicks off the yearly birthdays – so she is a bit of a trial blazer! That carries over into life – she is a successful entrepreneur and has created quite a name for herself. She is hardworking, driven and c ..read more

Josh arrived home from working in Jasper – with COVID. Leah got COVID Zandra and Ilyah got married (twice in January long story but the their officiant got COVID and it muddled things) Josh’s 16 trip (at almost 19) to Copenhagen, and Switzerland (Zurich, Lucerne. Interlaken (where we went paragliding!), Zermatt) Josh travelled all over Europe and then headed to Thailand for a month Sam only child:) Sam gets COVID Hours of FaceTime calls with kids (Sunday is a marathon) Another 52 Building Resilience Podcasts Hit 25K downloads Outerbanks for the week to work (too early in the season – some of o ..read more

We visited NYC as a family when the kids were much younger – in 2014! I can’t believe how much we travelled that year bcs it was the year Rob had a heart attack – but we still managed to do Gabe’s 16 trip to Munich and Venice, the whole family at Lake Powell/Las Vegas and then NYC! We clearly had more energy then. Lol. And were not as worried about retirement nearing and how to fund that. Lol. But since we weren’t going to see Gabe and Shannon for the holidays, and since they are in NYC, we thought it would be fun to go for a whirlwind trip. Zandra and Ilyah had to head back to San Fran early ..read more

I didn’t do a great job of taking pictures this year. Terrible, actually. Except maybe of Reggie. He really is my favourite child. HA! But despite the lack of pictures (well you see there ARE pictures but I am missing some of my usual ones and forgot to take some of a few things we did too!) we had a fun house and lots going on! Josh was the first to arrive home from Carleton, even though he still had a paper and an online exam to do. But he figured he might as well be home to do it. He had quite the schedule while he was home – I couldn’t keep track of what time he went to bed and what time h ..read more

2022 Poem Welcome to Christmas 2022 Buckle up there’s a lot to get through Although interest rates grow higher; Santa’s elves never tire We finished 2022 with payments a little higher, Gabe and Shannon travel down to the wire, but warm and cozy with a Fulton Christmas fire. The year started as it does Shannon’s birthday to kick things off Who knew they would soon be in a NYC loft But wait hold on, I’m getting too far ahead We have some important things to cover like – I do thee wed A ring, an early morning ping, and a zoom meeting A remote wedding on a beach lots of tweeting While we we ..read more

I have always loved New York, but when you have a kid living there – it is even better! Gabe and Shannon spent a year in Florida where he completed his first year law school. And while Florida for winter beach getaways and Disney is good, it was just not for them. We were also thrilled when he said they were headed to Brooklyn Law School to complete his degree! Shannon works virtually so it doesn’t matter where she lives (although since being in New York she has also picked up some in person work which is fun!). He started 2nd year law in September and is loving it. Looks like they want to mak ..read more

Or should I say yearly snaps of life??? I’ve totally slacked on this blog? Now just keeping it up for big trips, birthdays and special occasions. But I noticed even little trips are being forgotten so I am including them here! But I was looking over my blog books (I print them out! Some years it has taken two books but I was able to do one book for both 2020 and 2021 so that shows how my blogging has taken a dip) and noting how it is so nice to have all the year pictures in it – even the everyday in between moments. There are a lot of everyday moments that I don’t to forget. Although it is qui ..read more

It is so nice that they got to get married and celebrate on one day with family and friends, and then focus on their temple sealing (the religious ceremony of our faith – a sealing of their unity for time and all eternity). Although we were all a little tired, we were very excited to go to the temple. (And I’ll just add that we all managed to have decent hair – since it was the morning after the party (early morning!) and no one had time to get ready!) No photos are allowed in the temple – so my heart took lots of pictures. Rachael’s mom and I were the witnesses so that was special too ..read more

Here are all the “official” family photos Then all the gorgeous photos of the couple… I can’t decide on my fave ..read more

Next – the ceremony: Following the ceremony we did family photos (but I’ll put those in a separate post). Everyone went and enjoyed the charcuterie board (Rachael made the actual wooden board! We all prepped the meats and cheese the day before) Dinner was salads and schwarma poutine ..read more