Good Morning!

Good Morning! We arrived back home last night, after a 2 day drive with 3 kids cross country. This morning we got up early to get Silje on the bus, and then Knut went back to bed for a few more precious moments of sleep, and I went to the basement to do some gentle “Wholly Fit” Christian yoga to try to work out all of the kinks acquired on the drive.

I’ve been feeling better each day, and taking less and less drugs each day. I’m down to just Tylenol once or twice a day, which isn’t bad. I don’t feel as though my strength is completely returned yet, and I’m pretty sure I lost some weight over the course of this all. It was pretty painful to eat when the tumor was so big, but of course I still had to eat. Still, those who know me know I have no weight to lose, and I get pretty weak pretty fast when I do lose it. So I think I’ll be feeling a little weak until I return to a healthier weight.

I know people might just think that’s a ticket to each junk food for the next few weeks, but you try eating a bunch of junk food and then taking care of 3 kids. It’s impossible. Junk food won’t give me the strength and endurance to keep up with them! So it will be, like everything else, a process, and one that I hope goes well.

The trip back went without a hitch. I can’t remember the last time we did that drive in such beautiful conditions! We were able to break each day into a morning, afternoon, and evening shift. I took the afternoon one, and Knut took the others. The kids were restless the first day, and tired and cranky the second day.

Poor Elias was just pulling at his 5 point strap and screaming in frustration the second day. You should see him move today! He won’t stay still or listen for anything. He’s just a crawling tornado going through my house. Nothing has gotten unpacked yet because of him, and I’m hoping he will take a morning nap this morning so I can at least have a few minutes to find the floor in my kitchen today.

Knut was kind enough to unload the van last night, and gave me the job of starting a fire in the fireplace. As I waited for the fire to really take off, I sat on the floor and read through the pile of Christmas letters sent to us while we were gone. What fun that was to sit and “catch up” with so many people who we love. My Christmas letter did not get done this year, and even though the stationary and stamps are sitting in front of me, I think I’ve decided to save them for next year. Sometimes, life hands you an extraordinarily hard season, and this last fall was ours. Things had to get cut. My family didn’t get my Christmas cookies (although we did get Aunt Heidi’s!) and you all won’t get our Christmas card this year. I’m sure every year won’t be like this though. At least I hope!

But back to the trip, the fun thing about a road trip is all the opportunities to hear the kids play together. Sometimes, I don’t get their humor. They would laugh hysterically over the weirdest things. Knock knock jokes are their favorite right now, and they love to make them up. The one that had them in stitches the most was:

“Knock, knock”
“Who’s there?”
“tree”
“tree who?”
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t eat a firetruck hamburger?”

I know…I don’t get it either, but apparently it’s the funniest joke ever told.

I have so much to do that I’m not sure where to start, but as Elias runs around like a mad man, the safest place for him to be is in the playroom in the basement, and the only thing for me to do down here is blog, so here I am. We need groceries, but I don’t know when or how I’ll get to the store today. We need to pick up Lena, but again, the when and hows are unknown. Knut will be working a bit today, but I’m not sure when or for how long.

So basically, we’re home. We have no clue what we’re doing, but we’re here, and glad to be here. Hopefully this new year will be a new start. Hopefully we can leave behind the terribly long and frustrating harvest, the painful miscarriage and health issues that followed, and the radiator leak in our van found just hours before a 30 hour round the clock road trips down to Arizona. That was so 2009.

2010 has a surgery with a best case scenario outcome in it, and a perfect weather for a road trip, in which we had no van problems. So far…2010 is looking good.