2019 began with a lot of snow and ice around here. I spent the first few months of the year having to cancel or postpone several meetings, events and activities due to bad weather. It was pretty overwhelming. In January, we decided to look into hosting a foreign exchange student for a school year. We went through all the paperwork and visits, and by February, we were approved and had confirmation of our whom our student would be. We began visiting with our bonus daughter in February, and were able to build an incredible bond for 6 months prior to ever meeting her in person.
We spent our Spring and Summer trying to get our little farm back on track. We reworked our farm plan, determined a few directions that we needed to go and a few we wanted to go. With a lot of heated discussions, my insistent need to make numbers work, and finally putting my business degree to use...we finally agreed to change course of our little farm. While this will take a couple years to fully implement, we are making small steps forward.
Our kids have grown and changed so much over the past year. The oldest is now 19 and the youngest is 10. The oldest has begun building his own life. He has quite a start on his dream of having a cattle farm. He has grown his heard and has now gotten the experience of renting ground for his cows. The youngest has grown and changed by leaps and bounds. She is now almost as tall as I am, is about the same weight, and is quickly phasing out the toy phase. She has an amazing talent with abstract art. Needless to say, we are going through paint canvases and acrylic paint like there is no tomorrow! For this mom, this is the first year in 19 that my entire shopping list was not toys....I bought 3! So, getting to shop for toys for the little nieces and nephews was my life line.
In August, we finally got to meet our bonus daughter in person, at the airport. It seems so strange to think we hadn't met, since we were able to get to know each other through texts for 6 months before hand. We have been completely blessed by this experience! We welcomed Miss. Laura Pilla to our family August 2nd, and now as we get ready to end our year, not only have we gotten to experience hosting but we also gained another daughter.
August began kind of a crazy time for us. Not only were we all adjusting to having another child but a ton of activities as well. After a week or so of Laura adjusting to the new time zone, new family and new life style; she had a new school and schedule to learn, and we went as a family to see one of my favorite groups, Home Free.
September is always a crazy month around our house. It's the end of Summer and the prep for Winter begins....plus we had 3 birthdays, and one big party. This year, we celebrated 3 September birthdays. My oldest, his best friend who is like another son to me, and our bonus daughter all had birthdays within a week of each other. So, we had one big party for the 3 of them.
In addition to my kid's party, we held our first disabled veteran deer hunt for the Wake Foundation - Tri-State Chapter in September. We had 4 disabled veterans this year, and our farm got to be host to all the activities. It was an honor and a lot of fun getting to know so many great people!
October brought Laura's first Halloween in America, my least favorite holiday and some unusual weather. We did some fall decorating for the first time in years this year. My girls were loving that. We even got costume bought, candy bought and had plans of trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty bad and we ended up staying home and having our own Halloween party. October ended with snow...not typical for us, but a great excuse to put the Christmas tree up early! :)
I typically put our Christmas decor up early, because it takes weeks to get everything up and decorated. So, November was a flurry of decorating, lots of laughter as my kids were loving decorating and getting ready for my favorite holidays. Laura got to experience a truly American holiday, twice, Thanksgiving. This year we got to have Thanksgiving Day with Richard's mom's side and his Brother and family.
Our 2nd Thanksgiving was also a kick off of the Christmas season with the other half of Richard's family, or most of them...missing a sister.
December has greeted us with more of a flurry of events. We have our annual traditions that we were able to include Laura with this year. I have been so happy having the 3 kids, all whom love Christmas, to help keep me in the mindset for Christmas this year. We have so many fun traditions and I know my kids are growing up and these traditions will diminish, but for this year anyway, all the kids indulged me and even acted as though they had fun. Visiting Santa at Harvestville Farm, decorating gingerbread houses, lots and lots of baking, our Christmas open house, driving around looking at Christmas lights, multiple Christmas celebrations since both our parents are divorced, our own Christmas, our Christmas eve traditions, my birthday, New Years Eve and New Years Day will round out our big celebrations.
2019 has been a pretty hectic year. With so many changes for us, it's been a little overwhelming trying to fit everything in but we have done our best. We have been blessed with not only a bonus daughter, but also her amazing family. We have spent 4 months as a family of 5, and that is just the beginning. I'm looking forward to our last couple weeks of the year, the celebrations and more memories to be made in the coming months. 2020 is already looking to be full of experiences, changes, and growth in so many ways.
From our family to each of you, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Salli
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