I was looking at some old blogs the other day and really enjoyed reminiscing and realized I had not blogged that much about our daily life. So I decided to do it in one special end of year summery blog, “Looking Back at 2015” so I can take time in the years to come to remember all of the little events in our life that make our life so special and personally “ours.” This post is mainly for myself and my family but I hope you also enjoy taking a glimpse back over our year!

Below each picture I will give a basic “rundown” of what was going on in the pics… You get to have fun matching the memory to the image! 😉

• January brought us some family game nights with my sister, her hubby, and son, she is always too serious when game playing and I am always too laid back… that combo makes for some good laughs!
• As always, life on the little farm is entertaining, from my little “dancing goats” when you feed them bread to Adam finding our first turkey egg, there is always something new to experience!
• Hubby and I had the best “day trip” date in a long time! We geocached a little and road around up towards Jacksonville stopping at “Loves Lookout”. It was so nice to just get a moment to be “us” and in love and spending time together!
• Adam had started building “fairy houses” anytime we were out by the lake! Lord knows we don’t want any homeless fairies! He liked the idea of leaving it behind for other kids to see and want to start doing them too!
• We visited the Texas Forestry Museum and the kids enjoyed playing around in the “Sawmill Doctor” exhibit! So dramatic… Anna apparently needed to remove some organs from Adam with him fully conscious. I thinking out of the two of them Adam may make the better doctor, he just listened to Austin’s heart during their “consult.”
• On one of our adventures out around Woodville, we came across this giant mantis and of course we had to get a picture with it!
• My kids did yard work without being asked, I was so proud… then they came in and asked if their friends could come over… ah ha! They had motives! Win-win!
• And we took the two little ones out driving around an vacant boat ramp. We are hoping with little experiences like this, they will get used to being behind the wheel and not be as reluctant as their brother was about driving.

• Anna got invited to her first homecoming dance this year! She had a good time experiencing a bit of social life while being escorted by a sweet respectable young man.
• We went out driving around the lake and discovered one of the parks had a large jump pad that the kids thoroughly enjoyed bouncing, jumping, and doing cart wheels!
• My nephew Josh and Noell had a baby shower for their baby girl Karleigh! Our first grand-niece!
• My turkeys had an obsession with nesting for the longest time. She would hide her nests and we spent plenty of time trying to find them! It was like a all natural egg hunt!
• We had a day trip to Beaumont for our anniversary and ate at our favorite restaurant, The Brazos Cattle Co, where the kids played “mad scientist” with their drinks!
• And in honor of Leonard Nimoy passing away February 27, 2015, we had Sabbath and gave the priestly blessing hand sign that “Spock” always used as his Vulcan salute. RIP Spock!

• We celebrated Purim with a costume contest and family game night and tons of good food shaped into Hamentashen!
• Austin got his first job at the same store I used to work at before I was married March 11, 2015! He worked graveyard shift every weekend which made it interesting to find time for family adventures.
• Our nephew Josh and Noell were married! March 21st 2015! So happy for them!!
• Since Austin started working so much, Adam happily stepped up and took on more of the little farm duties like tilling! He is such a great help!
• We tried to make sure to continue to spend quality time together when Austin had days off and went on several hiking and biking trips!
• We also tried to make sure to spend time with the other two littler kids even when Austin was at work and played at the park with them , we all enjoyed swinging and playing on the see-saw!

• There was so much rain this spring there was flooding all over Texas and the lake was up really high so we took a few trips out to just look at the high waters.
• Passover was April 3rd this year and we had the whole family over for our Passover Seder!
• We hiked as much as we could even though some of the trails required a bit of climbing to reach the other sides of the valleys. Of course the kids had to make it out to be an episode of Indiana Jones or something and dramatize their play into vivid adventures along the trail! The kids always pick flowers and stick them in my hair.. like they always say… “It’s tradition!”
• April 8th, Stewart had his wreck in his mail Jeep, Thank God he was not badly hurt but the Jeep was totaled.
• We traveled to Louisiana to get Stewart a new Jeep and along the way we camped in a very nice little cabin at Jimmy Davis State Park and enjoyed some nice quiet much needed family time!
• Our Grand-niece was born April 14th… we went for a visit a week later, she looked so tiny in her big ol’ Uncle Stewart’s arms!

• After last months day trip get away in Louisiana, my sister Brenda and her family decided to go on a over night vacation to South Toledo Bend State Park and rent one of their awesome cabins! We rode bikes and played on the play ground equipment and just enjoyed the peacefulness of nature.
• Austin had saved a good bit of money and finally found himself the truck he wanted down in Houston. We took a road trip so the boy could buy his very first truck!!
• We enjoyed a picnic at the local state park, still making sure we spend quality family time together even though our family has various schedules running in different directions a lot lately we find it very important to make time to get together and just do the little things we love.
• My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on May 22nd! We took family photos and had a nice dinner, gave them accolades and watched a slideshow of their life! It was a very sweet way to honor our parents.
• Anniversary parties bring out the romantic in us, a pic capturing a kiss between hubby and I!

• We took advantage of Texas’s “Free Fishing Day” and fished for perch down a back road that was flooded by high lake levels.
• Start of Summer means water balloon and water gun fights with friends which turn into wrestling matches in the kiddy pool!
• We visited the Heritage Village Museum in Woodville TX, the kids took a spin on the pottery wheel!
• We went to our local state park and went biking with my sister and family enjoying getting exercise and nature.
• Austin finally got his full fledge drivers license after a long time of being reluctant about driving.
• Austin quit his first job at the convenience store and started his second job at the local grocery store deli June 12th making a bit more per hour and a lot better hours that the previous job’s graveyard shifts.
• We took a little day trip to the local dam area and picnicked and the kids ventured out onto the rock wall to see how far they could walk it before having to turn back.

• My uncle from Colorado came for a visit. It was nice weather so the family gathered and we had a cookout where my nephew was the BBQ chef and made “Armadillo Eggs.”
• We started playing scrabble to help with spelling and reading skills, not wanting to lose precious ground over the summer since we decided not to school through the summer this year!
• We attended our small town’s parade and Ol’ Timey Homecoming Day events. The kids really enjoyed being able to wander freely around town with their friends and eat snow cones and funnel cake fries and just enjoy small town living.
• Summertime is always the best time to play a little two man baseball!
• Austin, our 19 year old, moved out of our house and into our camper. Still on our property but having a space to call his is the first step to independence. We gifted him a “house warming gift” of the essentials he needed to live in the camper.

• August heat was not horrible this year so we went riding the back roads with the top off the Jeep, hair flying in the wind, arms raised high, just enjoying life!
• Our dogs posed for a super cute picture of them all laid up in the porch chairs during the lazy dog days of summer.
• We went on a weekend trip to Kountze with my sister and family. We enjoyed a little shopping, putt putt golf, bumper cars, biking and geocaching, and swimming in the hotel pool.
• With the end of summer comes the start of school. We enjoyed doing science projects, and working as a family scrapbooking our Bible portfolios.
• We had to buy homeschool T-shirts so the kids wouldn’t get harassed in public anymore for not being “in school” during the public school hours.

• We went on picnics, hikes and fishing trips together as a family, trying to keep the normal rhythm our family had even though Austin worked most weekends and evenings.
• School science experiments brought smiles to the kids’ faces, which makes me smile as well. Making school enjoyable is very important to me, I want them to enjoy learning, not just endure it.
• It has been almost a year since my husband lost his father to a heart attack, my mother in law ordered a beautifully painted headstone which took a long time to get, so for my father in laws first birthday in Heaven, she had his headstone set.
• Even on days Austin couldn’t get off work to join us, we tried to do some things with the kids. Their play is always dramatic and Anna “rescued” Adam from a picnic table that erosion had nearly slid into the lake. I love their vivid imaginations.
• Their friends invited them to go watch a movie with them so they got to watch Maze Runner – Scorch Trials with friends.
• We adopted a set of bottle baby bob-tail kittens, Sassy and Wall-e, getting these kittens to “weaned stage” was a tedious task. And we had our other cat, Kat-Nip, spayed and she was such a sweet little patient just wanting to be held because her tummy hurt.
• The end of the month was the beginning of Sukkot, which we decorated the pergola beautifully in an attempt to get into the “holiday spirit” but alas, it was just not the same with our whole family there because of work.

• Sukkot was still going on and the kids and I made our version of S’mores, no camp fire needed which was a good thing because we were under the usual Texas summer time burn ban. We still attempted to enjoy the holiday but it was sadly, fairly blah.
• A lot went on for Austin this month, he turned 20 this year and celebrated by going out to dinner with us and watching “Pan”, our normal birthday tradition of dinner and a show.
  He started a second job, one that he had wanted to have for a long time. He was hired on at Texas Parks and Wildlife for a seasonal maintenance position at an local state park.  He also started a relationship with a girl, his first since he was probably 12, and he also was making new friends at work who he liked to hang out with, our baby was growing up and beginning to test his wings leaving the family a bit more to experience the world.
• Adam wanted a donkey for his birthday so he could teach him to pull a donkey cart. So we went to Canton TX and bought the sweetest little miniature donkey, Rowdy. Rowdy and Adam quickly became friends and Rowdy would follow Adam everywhere, even when Adam was tilling, his faithful companion was right by his side acting a bit jealous that Adam’s attention was not completely on him.
• School continued with the joy of Science and life skills were added when my daughter helped her dad change the truck’s oil, covering herself in oil during the process.
• Trying to adjust to being a family of four with Austin rarely available for family time between his two jobs, new friends, and a girlfriend, we tried to still do things like ride around with the Jeep’s top off and watch the sunset over the lake but sadly the adventures became a bit more scarce.
• We did find a few moments that all of us were together and we went geocaching. Austin found our 700th find!
• Our poor baby Kelev was guarding our backyard from a mean ol’ possum and took a nasty bite right on his nose, it was swollen and nasty looking for days and you could tell he felt miserable. Thankfully, we have his shots up to date so we don’t have to worry about rabies.

• November was the kids’ big “Zombie Birthday Party,” after the food, and gifts we played “Zombie tag” at night. The adults “zombies” chased the kids “humans” around in the pitch black forest while they tried to collect glow in the dark “antidote pills” (old Easter eggs spray painted with glow paint.) If the kids were tagged five times they became zombies, unless they had their antidote. Amazingly we only suffered a few falls and bumps but the kids seemed to have a blast, we old zombies had to eventually give up from exhaustion!
• Anna got to finally watch the last Hunger Games which has been her birthday tradition for the last few years. We let Austin invite his girlfriend along as well.
• Donkey liked to get up in the flowerbed and eat the sprouts from the bird seed that had fell on the ground, I called him my little weed eater!
• I enjoyed some snuggle time with Adam, big brother being to busy all the time has taken it’s toll on him, he misses his brother.
• Anna and her dad worked on sealing the campers roof from leaks for Austin. Anna was not happy one bit about having to tend to “brother’s responsibilities.”
• The family all got together for Thanksgiving. We listed all the things we were thankful for over the past year, writing them on leaves and adding them to our “Thankful Tree” then we enjoyed good food and played games afterward.

• Austin was making plans to move out on his own, off our property. The stress of this separation has been really hard on the whole family, but we are just trying to make it through it. In preparation of his move, he adopted a rescue dog, Deni, so he would have a companion and guard dog. It made me feel a little better knowing he wont be totally alone.
• Hanukkah time was early this year, we made our traditional cookies and decorated them which is always a fun and yummy family time!
• We had our annual big Hanukkah dinner for the whole family, and sat around visiting afterwards mostly talking about the fact that my son was now engaged to his girlfriend after only two months of dating her, thankfully they plan on a year long engagement.
• We woke the kids up really early to open gifts before Austin had to go to work, this will probably be the last “Hanukkah morning gifts” with all three kids at home. Yes, that makes me sad.
• We took the teens skating/hiking down a trail, we walked a dirt trail together then on another trail they skated on the concrete areas and we walked. I am quite proud of them, they are getting really good on their boards.
• Hubby spent a few days in the hospital from a partial blockage in his intestine, the nose tube he endured for twelve hours was the worst part of the ordeal. Thankfully through much prayer, the blockage was gone… not moved but gone! Thank you Yeshua!
• Austin’s seasonal park job ended for the couple month “off season” so he was able to go on a hike with us which is our traditional Christmas day “thing to do.” We found a couple geocaches along the way as well.
• With money Adam got from his Maw-maw for Christmas, he bought a remote control car and Stewart had to buy one also so they could race! We went down to the vacant boat ramp and let them play with Anna skated and I took photos. They had a blast, a much needed daddy son time!
• The year ended with a bang! We gathered at my sister’s house with the rest of the family for grilled burgers and fireworks. Adam got to finally join in with the older cousins to pop fireworks, I am glad they make him feel like “one of the guys” even though he is eight years younger! Little Nate (my grand-nephew) loved the firecrackers and always asked for, “Nother one!”

It has been a rough ending to the year with all the changes of my eldest leaving the nest but I look forward to the New Year and new beginnings and new chances to live, laugh, and love and moment to embrace our “Happy Daze.”

Thank you all for visiting my blog and allowing me to share tid bits of my life with you all.

Blessings,

Becky