2024 Highlights

It's hard to believe that I only touched my blog once this year! I think about it often, and really like to be able to look back at our life. Maybe it's just me, but I find that it isn't as easy to upload pictures as it use to be. Honestly, it really could be me because I am not a very techie girl. 

Life has kept moving along whether I blogged about it or not. *smile* We've had lots to keep us busy and were able to spend a wonderful amount of time with extended family. We'll start with Easter. We were able to join Chuck's family. Everyone happened to be there! There was some crazy number for 30 or more in attendance. That had only happened once in the 4 years since Chuck's grandma passed away. The following picture is of my family along with my mother-in-law and her husband, Mike. 

I am mainly posting this picture so I can show you all my big change for 2024. I have been on a weight loss journey. I started February 15th and so far I am down 60 pounds! It's certainly been a journey that has needed to happen for a long time. Although I knew it needed to take place and had played with weight loss here and there the final straw was a yearly doctors appointment.

He said he thought my numbers indicated that I was diabetic and I said, "Oh no, that's not happening!" That was the kick in the pants I needed to get serious. Chuck has been a huge cheerleader for me and he has recently joined me on this adventure. My goal is to be down 20 more pounds by my next appointment in March. Then I will see what he says, my numbers, how I feel and see if I am ready to change to maintaining instead of weight loss. We'll see. 

In May we celebrated our 23rd anniversary. It was a busy day, but we managed to go out for a nice dinner and snapped this picture on the way out of the restaurant. 

Megan finished her homeschool education last fall and we took a vacation to our favorite beach spot to celebrate in June. 

My parents, sister and nieces (along with their families) joined us on this trip also. My niece, Lauren had graduated from Purdue University and we were celebrating her graduation also. 

 We are already taking about our return trip.

We made a small addition to our back yard.

My parents have a pool and through the years we have spent countless hours there. It seems like it's been harder and harder to get over there with Megan's schedule. I may have convinced Chuck that we "needed" this. Oh my, I had no idea how much I would love it! It will definitely be making an appearance again next summer. 

Megan has been working hard since she finished school. She has a list of goals and was able to mark one of them off.  She was able to pay cash for this cute Ford Escape.  

She is super happy and so were we. Especially since it meant we no longer had to play chauffer! 

I'm pretty sure that I mentioned that we had gotten chickens. Six little chick last year that now have a permanent spot in our hearts. We had a very cold winter last year and our girls really struggled. To the point that one super cold week all six of them were in pen in our garage. That did not make me happy! So building a new coop was on the list for the summer.

The coop grew and grew and is now referred to as the chicken barn! I don't have a good picture of the finished project. (I can't snap one today since it is raining.) If we were going to build we thought we should have some space for growth and to store feed and such. It's funny how a little project will grow and grow. 

Another project was a little revamp in our kitchen. The cabinets needed a fresh coat of paint and I had never been happy with the hardware. The last time we did a refresh we decided not to spend the money on new hardware. I also added wallpaper to the inserts for the bead board look. It showed every nick each time it was bumped. 

This time Chuck took out the centers and added actual bead board paneling. I painted the hinges and added new knobs. While we were at it we debated on new counter tops. The previous ones were Formica and some of the edges had cracked. We looked at all kinds of options and decided it was more economical for Chuck to make custom butcher block counter tops. Oh my! That turned out better than I imaged! (you might see a little bit of our table. I also refinished it and painted our chairs black.) 

Can I say that I love the undermount sink!!

In July Megan turned 18 which meant that she was able to vote in the Presidential election.

I don't think she'll ever forget her first time voting as we waited in line for 2 hours and 15 minutes to cast our votes. It was quite the experience. 

We ended the year with my father-in-law and his wife coming into town. I hosted them and the step-brothers and their families the Sunday before Christmas. It was great to see them, but I confess having out of town company at Christmas is hard! We did mark some time off limits and had some wonderful time with our little family of three. 

It was wonderful Christmas season and great 2024. I am making list, setting goals and praying for what 2025 has in store for my family. I hope all of you also had a wonderful year and I pray 2025 bring even more blessings your way. I hope to "see" you all soon! 

Wendi