Happy new Year everyone!!

Hello all. I'm BAAAAACK. If Cassie can get caught up, I should too! Miss you.
Anyway we have been busy since my last post. There was Thanksgiving, Christmas in Fargo, Christmas at home, New Years, the flu, a cold, a new entry way, lots of new toys (especially my i-pod, love it), and lots of movies. Oh and did I mention a flood. Yep 2 inches of water in the basement after some heavy duty Black Friday Shopping. They say every cloud has a silver lining. This one did. WE have always wanted to flip our basment, and we did in a big way!! The insurance money also helped when we had shell out a grand for both of our vehicles. I also got a new french door fridge and a new cherry colored front load wash machine. Yes energy efficiency is running wild in my house. Also add in one nice scrapbooking weekend and lots of time spent with family and friends. WE said goodbye to Tom in December as he embarked on his mission abroad for the military. All sources say he is in Iraq and will be there for I think 60 or 90 days. I am sure Kris has the countdown going. I feel for her. Luckily she has her mother in law there to help. Be safe TOm!!
Karady had a good Christmas. She opened all of her gifts herself, and there were a lot. Christmas morning she dug through her stocking (we have huge stockings) and every single thing in it got the response "Thank you Anta". It was so cute. It was quiet as Nolan was on call, and we spent it at home. We went to Sannes' Christmas Day for fondu and to open gifts, then we played electronic Monopoly and the Farming Game (two games I hate playing) and I won both!! I should have made a trip to the casino right away.
Nolan stepped down from the managers position with the Helicopter. SO many dynamics have changed and he has so much less stress. Lift off date is now in February. We will see if it happens. He will still work for them, but not in a mangers role.
The Great Flood of 2010 took place somewhere between 4 am and 9am the day after Thanksgiving. Tammi and I went Black Friday shopping and got home at 3:30. By the way it was a great time. I only hit both Walmarts, but it was an experience. Nolan left at 4 to do more. I woke up at 9 to a waterfall in the basement from a broken pipe going outside. Poor Karady's toys were floating. I got the water turned off and started sucking up the mess. The insurance company instructed us to call a cleaning company, so I did. I didn't realize the magnitude of the work to be done. The company basically told us to empty out all of our stuff to the top floor. WE HAVE A LOT OF STUFF!! So while they sucked up water we moved. We moved nonstop for like 4 hours. I must have been up and down the stairs 100 times. The company was awesome. One guy sucked water, while the other helped us move stuff. I have never been so embarressed in my life. We have so much STUFF and much of it was not put in a place. He assured me he would rather help with our mess then clean carpets all day. So they cut holes every 6 inches all away around the base and left 13 high powered dryers and 2 huge dehumidifiers. It took one week to dry out everything, but they still had to cut 1 foot off the sheetrock all the way around. Our loss wasn't huge. THey were able to salvage the carpet. I lost a cricut, so luckily I had already bought one at the Black Friday sale. It it amazing how fast things add up!! I mostly have everything in tubs, thank god. Everything was replaceable. SO this mess prompted us to flip the basement, since we had the mess anyway. I must say I got the better end of the deal. I have more scrapbooking room, and Karady has more room to play. It forced us to put things back in order and get rid of lots of Stuff!!
New Years was pretty quiet. We had such a huge storm, not too many people went anywhere. So we spent it with just the 3 of us. Speaking of storms we has SO MUCH SNOW!! It is also frigid here. I need badly to get to Bismarck, but I won't take Karady out in the freezing temps that are predicted for the weekend.
Karady continues to amaze me with the stuff she does and says. It is hard to remember she watches and does everything we do. She was on a cursing stretch for a while, and at the most inconvient times, like in church or at the doctor. She just says DAM it. I really can't say that I know where that comes from. HAHA. She refuses to use the toilet anymore, so we are still working on that. Maybe Grandma can get her to go when she stays there for two weeks in February. Last night we told her we were having Pizza for supper. She said "No Al Lee stays home". SHe always gets pizza when we have a sitter, and Al Lee is our sitter. She is so smart. She is also very independent with dressing herself, and she is not a morning person. My goal is to get her to bed on time, because she is not a happy camper if she doesn't wake up by herself in the morning, and is she can't eat before Daycare. SHe loves to color with markers (including herself), paint, play with her barbies and dolls. She plays pretend a lot. She love to watch Barney and Dora, and is just a girl through and through. She still loves to dance and put together puzzles. Oh how fast they grow.
Well I hope the New Year brings us great things. I have lots of goals, but I don't like to tell people them, because like so many other people, they kind of fall by the wayside, as the year rolls on. So we just live day to day, and enjoy our family.

TTFN

Lori