End of the Year 2018

Wow. I feel like every year, I come to this project and think to myself, "How is it that we are almost to the new year?! Wasn't I just working on this project last year?" 

2018 will go down in my books as being such a different, excited year. I went away for four months, I became passionate about flower farming, our family welcomed two sweet additions, I turned 20. This was one of those years that I will cherish for a very long time. 

Alright, lets go back in time to January of 2018, shall we?

I started the year by saying a sad good bye to everything I knew, hopping in my friend's car, and driving off to Wyoming.   

When we finally made it into the state of Wyoming, we still had about 4 hours left of driving. By that time it was dark, but the stars and moon was out so I just snuggled into my seat and looked out the window. Since Wyoming is so flat, the sky was that much bigger and literally reached to the 'edge of the earth.' It was one of the most beautiful car rides of my life just sitting and looking at all those stars and listening to music. I even saw a huge shooting star! Finally after hours of driving, we got off the free way and I was told that we were almost there. We drove for about one more hour, and eventually rounded a little corner and they all said, "See those lights down there?! That''s La Grange!" We had finally made it! 

The next day, we spent a pretty relaxing morning eating breakfast at the home of a new friend (who very quickly has become one of my good friends!) talking about school. Then in the afternoon, Lena helped me unpack, in the evening, Meghan, Lena, and I headed to Cheyenne so I could get a bunch of stuff that I hadn't packed. It was so fun buying stuff....essential things and then little decorations that helped me set up my little 'home.' 

On registration day, my roommate, Erika, introduced me to her best friend, Amy, and Amy and I started talking about different things and she mentioned how that evening some of them were going to watch 'The Greatest Showman.' She said, "You should totally come with us! We have an extra seat!" So that evening I got in a car with these ladies who I had literally just met that day and we went to Cheyenne to watch 'The Greatest Showman.'  That movie was amazing and then of course the whole way back, we were listening to the soundtrack and singing along with the songs. That was such a fun memory. 

One of my little corners in my room. 

My roommate and I on our first day of classes! Saturday night, I met her and I immediately liked her. We stayed up fairly late and basically told each other our life stories and everything that had led up to the moment of us being at Frontier School of the Bible. We both understood each other's situations so well and seemed to hit it off right away which was such a relief for me. (During that evening I even found out that she knew some of the same people I knew from back home! I just kept thinking it was such a small world!)

Mr. Seymour teaching 'Victorious Christian Living.' He was such a funny teacher!

Erika, Richelle, Joel and I taking a quick selfie before classes started! 

For one of the snacks on break, I got to help Meghan make a big batch of Monster cookies. It reminded me soooo much of my bakery job that I had just left! 

Meanwhile, Mom and Janeal made a quick visit to Montana during Faith's first birthday, so our family texts were getting some pretty cute pictures. This one of Dwight with Faith's crown was probably my favorite. I don't know if he realized it was Faith's birthday....not his. ;)

We finished the first week!! These girls were always so fun to hang out with (left to right: me, Amy, Kelly, Erika, Allyson, and Richelle)

The weekends were always fun because curfew was at 12:00 instead of 10:30 so we could stay up late and hang out. This first Saturday was especially fun memory. Richelle, Joel, Rhett, and I all went and played music in the chapel for a bit and then Rhett said, "Hey, lets go sing in one of those empty grain silos!" So we all ventured into a very large grain silo and started singing together and it was amazing. It was so echoy and fun in there. We probably shouldn't have done that, but no one caught us, so we never got in trouble...;) 

The weather was so different in Wyoming than Washington! It was usually sunny and windy. Like, really windy because there were no mountains or trees. Sometimes it was fun getting all blown around in the wind and sometimes it was really annoying. :) (Also, to the right of this picture, you can see the  grain silos that we sang in that I was just talking about :)

Spontaneous trip to Nebraska to go hiking up Scott's Bluff. 

Towards the end of January, we got a bunch of snow, so we decided to tie up sleds to the back of Ben's Jeep and spend the afternoon sledding. I was pretty scared for lots of it, but it was still lots of fun. 

Doodling during classes were a go to for me. Especially during some of the more.... dry classes. 

My calendar was a life safer for me! I would color coat everything...yellow meant a test, blue meant I had to read certain verses before classes, pink was women's classes assignments, and orange was fun events/important dates I needed to remember.

Netflix, and dorm snacks...popcorn, pizza pockets, granola bars. Gotta love that college life. 

FEBRUARY 

The snow in Wyoming was so beautiful. We'd just have snow randomly and by the end of the day, it would mostly be all melted. 

Looking down on the sleepy little town of La Grange. I had walked up the main highway that went right through LaGrange for this picture. 

Fun evening ice skating and then playing some hockey :) Cam was looking all intense dressed up as the goalie. 

Random ice cream party out in my hall way. I just walked out of my room and saw these girls sitting around, eating ice cream. I decided to join them. :)

This was probably the closest to experimenting a 'blizzard.' It was so windy and snowy. I put my hood on, held onto it, and walked as fast as I could from the Ad Building to the Chapel. 

My normal schedule was classes from 7:45-12:30. (including chapel and a quick break for coffee) 12:30 was lunch and then after, I would go to my room, look over my notes, study if I needed to,  or just hang out until around 4:00 or so. Then I'd get ready for dinner which was at 5:30. Then after dinner until around 7:00 or so, I'd study more and then usually make my way to the Student Center where I'd hang out with people and just have a good time until curfew which was 10:30. Then I'd start the process all over again. 

My roommate had some carrots and healthy snacks that she would pull out and eat sometimes so I was inspired to get healthy food. I actually liked having something that was healthy instead of just gross snack food. I would usually be pretty hungry by the time I would be ready for bed since dinner was always at 5:30. 

We had a big 1950's social where everyone had to dress up like the 50's. It was such a fun evening!! In this photo, one of our teachers who is extremely bald, showed up with 'hair' and a beard! We were all laughing and laughing at how he looked! He had let his daughters color hair on him. :) 

Bright red lipstick and bandannas. It was pretty fun dressing up like that. I was pretty glad I had some red lipstick too. I was one of the few girls who had red lipstick. :) (left to right is Callie, me, Richelle, Allison, and Sarah. I miss those girls!) 

This was a brother/sister section activity. For everyone that comes to that school, they always get placed in a sister section and then we always have a brother section that is our brother group. My sister section would always meet up about once a week and have a devotion and share prayer requests so it was always an encouraging time. Anyways, back to the picture. :) On this particular night, we all went bowling together and we had so much fun together. Rhett came along (Even though he wasn't part of our brother group) and he said to me, "Caroline, if you get a strike, I promise I will do whatever weird thing you want me to when we go into town." So, I got a strike and I told him that when we got to the gas station, he had to skip into the store, and buy himself a Monster. So sure enough he went skipping in and all of us in the van watching him were dying laughing. 

It actually was that cold. I stepped outside and my nose hairs immediately froze up. I'm not use to having weather be that cold!

Getting ready for the Gala!! This was such a fun day!   (The Gala is a fancy event where usually a guy asks a girl to go with him and you get all dressed up and fancy and it just a really fun event.) 

The Gala was a 'Masquerade' so we all had to wear our masks before we could go into the dinning hall. 

Studying with Allyson, Marcos, and Joel. We tried to get stuff done when we would study together, but we would mostly just end up goofing off and not getting anything done. I'm pretty sure that day, I even had to run over to the Admin building to grab a handful of Jolly Ranchers just so we would have some candy to eat so we could focus better. But, it didn't help. 

Random selfie with Allyson and Joel. 

MARCH

March started off with me going to Colorado for the first time so we could watch a hockey game! The evening before, Ben was like, "Hey, do you want to go to a hockey game tomorrow in Denver?" And I said, "Why not?" So he bought tickets, and right after lunch the next day, Ben, Ben K, Jo, and I headed off to Denver. We got there in plenty of time to walk down the 16th street mall, see the capital building, get a Subway Sandwich,  and then ride a train type thing to the Pepsi Center where we got to watch the AV's. 

Spontaneous trip to Hawk Springs Reservoir with Meghan, Allison, Sarah, Mitch, and Isaiah. 

We got ten days of spring break so I flew home. 

They all came to pick me up at the airport! It was so fun seeing them all!

I took a few maternity pictures for Emily. She was hardly showing when I left so when I got home again, it was so fun to see her pregnant and get to feel the baby kicking! 

A few school friends came home for spring break with Meghan so we wanted them to get a taste of Bellingham. We took them to Boulevard and got them Woods coffee. :)

I chopped my hair off during break!

I also got in on the Women's retreat and it was so much fun. It was so good getting to catch up with all my old friends again!

And then I was back at school. Spring break really was such a good time for me. I was so happy to be home with all my family and back in my Washington scenery. I loved it so much. I was so, so sad to leave for school. Even though we only had six weeks left, it felt like forever before I would be able to go home again. 

But as the time went on, I was happy to be back with my new friends. This evening was a lot of fun. The five of us  (Marcos, Allyson, Joel, Seth, and I) hung out all evening, walked up to the La Grange cemetery where we all tried to spook each other out, got stuck in a downpour on the way back down which left us all so drenched, then we all last minute went to Torrington to get McDonald's. 

The sunsets in Wyoming were amazing!!! 

First time I'd been to a Rodeo so I dressed up all like a cowgirl and had a good time. :)

On most of the dorm doors, girls would put out a little dry erase board and leave little notes on them. Erika would always put some pretty cute/funny ones on our board.

                                                                      APRIL

Easter Sunday!! A sweet couple from our church invited us school kids who went to that church over, along with lots of  other families and we had a big Easter feast. It was all so yummy! 

FSB women's retreat started out with Allyson (who is from Texas) having to get all the snow off of Amy's car before we headed over to Nebraska. She was laughing and saying, "I don't know how to do this!!" That women's retreat was short, but really, really memorable. In the evening after the first speakers were done talking, pretty much all of us went over to the YMCA to go swimming since we had rented the pool, and afterwards, Erika, Allyson, Heidi, and I went to Walmart and then to Applebees for some food. 

One night, Richelle wanted to play a prank on the boy's cars after curfew by writing on the windows of their cars with markers. We got a group of girls out there, but somehow, the boys had heard and they hid in their cars and trucks and jumped out on us while we were writing on their cars. I thought it was pretty hilarious.

My sister section!! From left to right: Me, Molly, Richelle, Holley (my RA), Erika, Kelly, and Jessica. 

My little corner of my room. The one thing about my room that I always liked was that it was always pretty clean. Erika was a really clean roommate, and I kept my area tidy too.  

This was  a special girl's evening where all the girls go to hang out and then play some glow in the dark dodge ball over in the gym. We all had such a blast. After it was all over, I helped some of the RA's and the dean of Women clean it all up and then we turned off all the lights, turned on some music, and did some line dancing. (Dancing was forbidden at Frontier, but......welll.....I guess that night we did it because it sounded fun. :) It was a really fun memory. 

Often at school, you could find me walking along this beautiful path. It was on that path that I really learned the importance of prayer and how dependent I need to be on it. Since I was away from my family and couldn't go to them with my concerns and questions, I would often go out to that path and pray about everything that was on my heart. That path will always be  a special memory. 

One of the main doors in our dorm had paper across it, so all of us girls could write notes on it if we wanted to and read what everyone was saying. This question made me laugh! Whoever wrote 'Jesus' definitely had the right answer because we are at a Bible School after all. ;) 

Spontaneous trip to Cheyenne with a bunch of people for some food. Birch decided to dress up for the occasion. 

Lazy Sunday afternoon. Joel and Birch started out by setting their hammocks up in the gazebo then eventually lots of people just ended up hanging out with all of them. The day was super warm and sunny and we all just wanted to be outside. 

I sure miss this place 

Meanwhile, our family chat was all eagerly waiting for the birth of Baby Balvanz. We decided to all guess when the baby would be born, what it would be, how big it would be, etc. Tommy went a step farther and guessed his name. ;)

One Sunday evening, Joel, Allyson, Marcos, and I went and bought some soda at the soda machine and then went on the walking path with just the moon lighting the way for us. (Which was pretty bright...) But then we went into the big field and did some star tipping. 

This is one of my favorite pictures. A couple of us students were spying on our teacher and we saw him in his office playing a computer game!! We were all laughing. None of us thought he would even like playing computer games. 

This was our last women's class together! Mrs. Roderick made us a nice breakfast and basically told us good bye and how much she enjoyed teaching us! 

Town clean up day! Instead of having classes, we had a town clean up where we went around the town, picking up trash, moving branches, and helping out the community. It was lots of fun. 

Later that same day, a small group of us went to the fire house to wash the ambulances. We ended up getting pretty wet ourselves. It was a really warm, beautiful day that day so we didn't mind. 

And then that evening was senior night where we got to honor all the seniors!! It was such a special evening. Emily texted us all that night that she was probably going to be having the baby the next day and I was so excited!

My last Sunday driving home with Priscilla. (Every Sunday I would usually drive home with her and talk about everything that was happening in my life and just talk about different things in general! She is still such a sweet friend to me!)  We stopped to get this picture of me with this classic Wyoming scenery since she wanted me to have a picture to show my family. :)

That afternoon, a bunch of us played Frisbee and then we all went and jumped into the creek. It felt so good since that day was so muggy and hot. 

And of course that whole day I had a smile on my face since this little man had joined our family that morning. Jensen Jeffrey Balvanz. I was so excited to meet him. 

                                                                      MAY

The beginning of May found all of us students packing up and preparing ourselves to say good bye. I couldn't believe it was already time to go home and due to different things, my parents had decided I wasn't coming back the following quarter to finish my year of Bible school. I was okay with it, but I was pretty sad to say the least that I was never going back to that little school. 

One last full school outing. We had a camp fire and hung out with everyone. 

The day of graduation, I woke up and went on one last walk on this path. I had walked so many times on that walk that I just felt like it was fitting to walk on it one last time. 

The three of us went with Ben and Cam early and got to watch all the graduation practice and just hang out with each other for a little bit longer. I miss this two!

My friend, Rebekah! She had to give her testimony during the ceremony and she did so well! That morning, I fixed her hair for her and she was telling me how nervous she was going to be and I told her, "You'll do fine!!" and she did great! 

I think saying good bye to all of my friends and knowing I would probably never see any of them again was one of the hardest things I've had to do. I didn't even try to not cry that day.....I was sobbing my eyes out. I got home on a Saturday evening and the next morning when I woke up, I ran out to the lilac bush and picked myself a bouquet of flowers. It cheered me up.

Getting to meet Baby Jensen for the first time also cheered me up. During that first week home, I was so, so sad, but I would often go over to Emily's house and help her out and that always helped me get my mind off of my college life. 

The week after I had gotten home, I went to Triple Wren Farms to shadow my soon to be boss and I helped put two weddings together. I knew nothing about flowers, but I had lots of fun that day getting to make bridesmaid's bouquets and even a bride's wreath! 

Mother's day!

Random evening playing some ultimate frisbee at the B's. This was so much fun because all the boys were being so goofy and I was laughing so hard the entire evening.....probably the hardest I had laughed since I had come home! 

One of my favorite pictures of this child  

I got to make this cute sign for Jensen! I was excited how it all turned out! Also, getting those little footprints was a challenge. He did okay at first, but then he was crying and we were trying to hurry with the second foot. I think they still look cute though. 

JUNE

And June meant I started working for Triple Wren! It was all so new to me at first, but I learned fast and I learned to love flowers. 

Sweet little Jensen

The beginning of June, William and Lena got engaged! They had a special walking path that they would often go on so this particular evening, William had asked Janeal and I to go ahead of them and bring the flowers and the ring to 'their' bench and then he could just ask her there. So we did that, hid in the bushes, then got to be the first ones to congratulate them. It was a special evening. :)

Ligoner conference!  

Adam's birthday! We all got together at Woods and had a good time 

My friend from school came to visit us so we all got together and talked for hours. It was so good getting to catch up with her and tell her everything that was happening in Washington! 

Our usual trip to Eastern Washington for our Grandpa's birthday. 

My bosses, Steve and Sarah doing a demonstration on wedding arbors! 

Picking bunches of sweet peas were always my favorite. They were so beautiful and smelled amazing!

In our workshop area at work, there was this family of baby birds, so one day during work, we decided to name them. The first name that came to me was Dixie, the first name that Isabelle thought of was Cecila, and the first name that Allyse thought of was Fredrick so those were their names for the rest of the time they were in there. 

Lil cutie pie

                                                                            JULY

Tuesday mornings always meant grocery store bouquets at the Triple Wren, so we'd write out our 'recipe' and start making bouquets. We all loved Tuesday mornings. :)

The result of the above recipe. 

The other big job at Triple Wren during July was getting the pumpkin patch planted. Rolling out rows and rows of black fabric, burning holes, and planting seeds. It was hard work and we would be covered in dirt, but I'd say looking back on it, the three of us who usually worked on it (Allyse, Isabelle, and I) had lots of fun conversations and made lots of memories while doing this. 

Fourth of July!

And also  a picture of the fireworks from fourth of July because it was one of the most amazing firework shows I've seen! It was so good!

The 5th of July found me all day at this beautiful location, helping my friends get ready for Adam and Annie's wedding! This was a busy day, but a very memorable and special day. :)

Michael had somewhat of a serious accident and he ended up having to spend the night in ICU. He recovered well and we were all thankful that it wasn't any worse than it could have easily been! This was after we had visited him...William and Tommy found a bunny in the hospital parking lot so they felt like chasing it...... those boys are crazy! 

More bouquets! 

Even though we made lots of bouquets, we also did lots of weeding, lots of harvest, and lots of hard behind-the-scenes of a flower farm kind of work. You know....the kind of work that never gets posted on Instagram because it's not as glamours as the flowers? I mean, someone has to do it! :)  All of us workers really wanted to start a behind-the-scenes of a flower farmer Instagram account just for that purpose to show what flower farming really is, but we never did. 

When the dahlias started popping open, we were all pretty excited. (At Triple Wren, we are mostly known for their dahlias and we have rows and rows of them!)

I got to use my hand lettering skills to make several different signs for Triple Wren which was always a lot of fun. On this day, my bosses daughter, Chloe Wren wanted to help me make a sign so I let her paint in the leaves. She was so excited!

Helping put wedding pieces together always made me excited! I threw all of these together one morning when Sam already had enough wedding flowers to work on and she needed some extra help. :) 

The Razz fest! Jensen, Emily, and I went to watch his uncles play, but he ended up not liking it so we went back home. 

Early mornings harvesting flowers with Isabelle and Allyse, catching up on each others lives, and watching the sun rise were always a highlight of the day. 

Allyse, Isabelle, me, and Chloe Wren! The three of us got along pretty well and Isabelle and I always had lots of fun talking to each other since we both knew each other from church. It was a pretty fun summer with these ladies!

And then we started picking dahlias in full force! We were picking dahlias until the frost hit them which was the beginning of October. 

Ending a day at the lake was always a highlight for me. I got to drive the jet ski for the first time this year, and it was such a blast! I realized that I have a bit of a wild side on a jet ski and I'd usually drive really fast and furiously on it. :)

Grocery store bouquets

William and Lena asked me to take their engagement pictures which ended up going really well. For this location, we had to climb over a fence, hope that no one would see us trespassing, take some pictures quick, and then leave again! It was a little scary, but this background and this big field of grass was so perfect!! I was so happy with these pictures!

                                                                        AUGUST

I think I was holding about eight stems of these dinner plate dahlias, but they were so big that I couldn't grab anymore!! These were the 'free, take them home whenever you want dahlias' because Sarah just wanted them for the tubers. By the end of the day though, I would usually be so tired of cutting flowers that I wouldn't ever go get any to bring home. 

Preparing for the campout!! 

Our campsite was so nice this year! It felt private, but we still had a nice view of the big field so we could see everything that was going on. I brought a bunch of Christmas lights and we strung them around all the trees. It looked really cool in the evening!

Love these girls!! 

Lena camped with me since I was all alone in the tent so it was lots of fun having an extra person! In this picture I was trying to teach William how to french braid her hair, but I think he had given up and was just normal braiding her hair. 

Singing around our campfire in the evening was always a perfect way to end the day. 

The last day of the campout, I said good bye to Meghan since she was heading back to Frontier! I was sad to see her leave, and I was sad that I wasn't going back with her, but I was also happy that I was home, working, and making memories with all my family and friends. 

I got featured in a magazine which was definitely a first. 

Zach got to meet his nephew for the first time! 

These little stinkers!! They are growing up so fast so getting to visit with them was a highlight of the summer. 

I love these kids so much!

One of the other highlights of working at Triple Wren was discovering all the different, cool flowers! This peddle-less sunflower was so, so huge! 

Got my cartilage pierced

Every summer now, we can expect a ton of smoke from wildfires to cloud out the sun and make things pretty miserable. The smoke this year was so, so thick. You could hardly see anything and we had to start wearing masks because the air pollution was so bad.  We were all praying for rain. 

The Northwest Washington Fair with these people! I had such a fun day, riding rides, (I almost thought I was going to die on one of the rides I went on with Grace. After it was done, I was shaking because I was so scared! But I ended up going on it again and again because it was really fun.)  walking around, eating food, standing in loooong lines for the rides, and goofing off with each other. 

Mom and Dad's anniversary! We all went back to Western where it all began and they showed us the dorms they lived in and the campus. It was a pretty fun evening and really neat to be at Western. It's such an old looking campus, but it was still so beautiful. 

Church bridal shower for Lena! 

Summer slowly was coming to a close....

Zinnia were not one of my favorite flowers to harvest, but they looked really pretty all together.

                                                                        SEPTEMBER

In September, I started helping Sam on Friday's with weddings. She would usually only work a few hours in the mornings and I would always stay longer and finish up. It was so fun working with her, or just working by myself and listening to tunes. 

William bought a house so we got to help set everything up.

Spontaneous trip to Mount Baker with Michael, Tommy, and Janeal! 

More wedding work!   

Pumpkin season started to hit the farm in full force which meant we were all busy getting ready for our pumpkin patch to open. 

This was the newest little 'crew member' of Triple Wren! 

Babysitting this little man during his uncle's wedding. We had fun together like we always do!

Another Friday, another wedding!

Emily's birthday!

                                                                         OCTOBER

October at the farm started out by all of us hurrying around, picking as many flowers as we could because we knew a frost would be coming soon and all the flowers would be dead. One of my favorite days at the farm was spent with Sarah where we had to tied/labeled off all the dahlias. It took us all day, but we had lots of fun while doing it, and I even learned lots of new names of the dahlias even though I had been working with them for months. This dahlia is called 'Punkin Spice.' 

Wreath making became a big part of October as we got things ready to sell at our pumpkin patch!

The first day of the pumpkin patch, we had a little over 1000 guests come. Sam and I were busy all day, checking people out and just spending time with each other. A couple weeks later, Sam went back home to Utah so I was glad to spend that day with her. 

Succulent pumpkins

Frost hit the farm! All the dahlias were dead just like that and it made me so sad walking into the farm and seeing all these brown, droopy flowers. 

Helping William move boxes to his house! 

Grace's senior night at Nooksack! 

October and November were busy digging and washing all the dahlia tubers. It was a huge job, but we got it all finished. 

The wedding week started out with one last shower for Lena at Emily's house.

Priscilla and Rebekah came for the wedding and it was so, so fun to see them again and catch up on life! It had been since the graduation that I had seen them!

Every time Zach comes into town, all the siblings try to go to lunch. We've done it pretty much all the time, except Emily hasn't ever been able to join due to work and the little guy, but this time we were all able to go and it was lots of fun. 

The day before the wedding. I got flowers from my work and Janeal and I got to make little centerpieces. 

Rehearsal dinner 

And the day of the wedding! Probably my favorite part of it was getting ready at the Balvanz's house that morning. Kenna was there doing hair, I had my makeup station all set up, and Rebekah was going around taking pictures for us. It was just a really relaxing time of the day. 

All dressed up!

This little ring bearer did his job pretty well!

William surprised Lena by singing a song to her. It was such a special part of the ceremony and I'm pretty sure everyone who came will always remember that. 

The bridal party

                                                                        NOVEMBER

Jensen loves staring at whoever is visiting him. He'll  look at me and smile, look away, and then look back at me right away again to make sure I'm still there. It's really cute because he'll always just stare at me and smile. 

Washing, drying, labeling so many tubers!! 

Get together at Woods with these people for Jacob's birthday. We all played Spazz and then a round of Jenga. 

I turned 20!

For my 20th, I got all my dolls out that I kept and was having a 'show and tell' to everyone. Then we decided to get a picture with Jensen and all of them. :)

Drawing was another big part of my year 

Thanksgiving day! 

DECEMBER

The first weekend was my two Messiah performances with the Lynden Choral Society and followed by the lights parade after Saturday performance. It was such a fun weekend!  

We were both wearing camo so we had to take a picture. ;)

I made a quick trip to Montana to visit the other Arnharts! I was there about 5 days and we all had a good time with each other. 

Little Miss Faith is growing up so fast! 

I always make lots of memories with these people! On this particular day, they all had to practice for the Christmas Eve service so I was just hanging out with all of them too. The practice ended up turning into all of us just goofing off and having races and singing Christmas carols off tune. :) After the practice we went to McDonald's for ice cream. :) 

This was one of the Christmas presents I made this year! I was really happy with the way it turned out! Jeffrey gave me this wood several months back and I finally put it all together and gave it to them. 

Spontaneous trip to Standwood and then Burlington for Red Robins with these people. 

Christmas Eve was a big part of December. Janeal and Tommy were a part of the service and I was running the AV for it. The service went really well and I was happy I could help with it. :)

Annual Christmas Eve picture with the siblings!

This baby adds so many smiles to our family!

Nikki came to visit so I took her around to visit the siblings. At William and Lena's house, we started working on their 3000 piece puzzle. 

And ringing in the new year with these people!! Happy 2019!!! 

And that was my year! It's been memorable and it's had it's challenges too, but I'm so thankful for everything that happened! Here's to 2019! ~Caroline