Not here. But here.

The other night Josh was reading up on his sister's blog when he made some smarty pants comment like, "so I guess you gave up on blogging?" Um, well no honey, but life has been a little crazy lately, a little busy, a little hectic, you know, a little insane! Sure I've only posted once in the last month, but just to give you a glimpse into my life, by the time Christmas passes, I will have been in the car a grand total of 80 hours (give or take an hour) in the past 6 weeks. I've been home enough to work, put up our Christmas tree, wrap a few presents, keep the house picked up, do laundry and repack either myself, Cayel, Josh or all 3 of us (before you lecture me, don't worry, NO Cayel has not been in the car that much with me...that would make me an irresponsible parent now wouldn't it?!?! :).

Where have these 80 hours in the car taken me you ask?!?!?! Well, living 7 1/2 hours away from most of my family and friends has made up for the majority of it. You see, I love Spearfish. I love my house. I love my in-laws. I love my church. I love my friends. I love the climate. I love the scenery. But truth be told, sometimes I just miss home. Sometimes I just miss my Dad & Mom. Sometimes I miss arguing with my sisters :) or loving on my sisters. Sometimes I want to hug my niece and nephew (who by the way doesn't like me unless I bribe him with something). Sometimes I miss my friends who have known me my whole life. Sometimes I miss having coffee with my Grandma. Sometimes I even miss the bitter cold Frozen Tundra. So, usually by the time November and December roll around, I am yearning for home. Besides, November and December are the months that I am considered a "Hunter's Widow" and these are the months that Josh is either living in a tree stand or taking hunting trip after hunting trip. And truth be told, I like to be with people...or if you asked my hubby, he would say that I can't be alone. Which ever way you'd like to look at it, I take advantage of being a "Hunter's Widow and I go home.

So in the past 6 weeks...I hit two birds with one stone by making one weekend a girls weekend with my dear dear friends Megan and Tara (and the two little boys) and then did my continuing education classes that needed to be done for work in Sioux Falls. The company paid my mileage, I got my continuing ed classes done and best of all, I got a weekend with my girl friends.








The next weekend I headed back east to Minnesota for my Great Grandma's funeral and got an amazing amount of quality time with my extended family!

A couple of weeks later my friend Tahra and I went back to Minnesota again for a GIRL'S WEEKEND to celebrate my birthday...no husbands (they were on a hunting trip, of course :), and no babies! It was so much fun and fulfilled my need for girl time!



To complete the 80 hours of drive time, we leave Tuesday to go back to Minnesota (again), but this time I will finally have Josh and Cayel with me! We will be celebrating Christmas with my family...the first time we will be back for Christmas since I moved to Spearfish. So excited!

Once our Christmas trip is complete, I think I will have gotten my fix for home and will be satisfied for awhile.