Hi family! With mom and Dean departing to the netherlands of SLC, I suddenly realized that my main source of communication about family events was going away too! Sometimes when my brain first wakes up in the morning, before it has time to realize what is going on, it has brilliant thoughts on how to deal with my VIP (very important problems). This morning it woke up with-why don't we start a family blog? So now you are wondering, what the heck is a family blog and why is she rambling on about this?
Well, I hope that the way this works out is that we can all access this page and "post" our own family news, events, rambles, whatever, so that we can all stay in touch. You can also just read other people's posts to see what is going on--but this really only works if everyone posts. At this point, this page is free--ad supported. I do not know if this will change, but we can make the most of it while it lasts. I hope I can set this up so we can all participate. I am just learning too, so hopefully, I won't goof up too bad.

So I will start with our news. Mom and Dean are leaving today, and as I told mom, I'm trying to make this real--that they will actually be gone for 18 MONTHS. Somehow, it has not yet sunk in. Maybe it will on Monday night, when we won't be going over to their house as we have almost every Monday night for the past, what, 4 1/2 years! Obviously, we are glad they are getting this opportunity and know that they will be awesome missionaries, so I will try to be strong and (boo hoo) say goodbye to my mommy.

Cal turned the big 6-0 this week. He can barely think about that, though, because the biggest thing on his mind is three months away-the day of his "separation" from the IRS (which means he is retiring). We celebrated his birthday twice so far and plan to have his daughter and grandchildren over tonight for pizza and cake.

The biggest thing on my mind is what I want to do with the rest of my life--I think I'm having mid-life crisis. At this point I plan to continue working, but at some point I'd like to cut back to do some other things. I'd still like to travel and we've looked at some options there, but I've got lots of ideas, just not a lot of decisions.

So that's what's going on with us right now. Please chime in with your thought, ramblings, news, etc.
posted by Cathy Crandall at 8:26 AM