An empty nest trial run...

Never a dull moment in the Anderson household! Bethany is on a 2 week fall break. Normally working at the hospital on the weekends prevents her from spending much time with her sisters. But due to the recent swine flu outbreaks, the teen volunteer program has been temporarily suspended. So yesterday I dropped her off at Mines to visit Laura for a couple of days. They were going to do some Christmas shopping and have girl time since Laura is also on her fall break. Tomorrow she'll take Bethany over to Amy's campus to spend a few days. All this to say that Brian and I are getting a small taste of what the "empty nest" thing feels like. He arrived home last night from San Diego and will leave again tomorrow morning for LA, but today we had one glorious day to just enjoy being together. We caught up on some things around the house and did a little bit of shopping ourselves. Mostly, though, we just caught up on all that's been going on with his job and things around home. It was nice to relax and talk. I love spending time with Brian. I think we'll be good at the empty nest thing someday. (Not too soon, though, thankfully!)

FYI...I'm reading an interesting series by Francine Rivers about women in the lineage of Christ. Although this is a fictional account based on Biblical facts, I found it quite fascinating. Now I'm excited about studying these women whose names I've heard but never really studied before. So far I've read about Tamar, Bathsheba, and Mary. Two more books to go.

whirlwind

What a crazy couple of weeks it's been for our family! My birthday has come and gone, and a week later Bethany turned 16. That one is still hard for me to believe. What a beautiful young lady she is, though. No matter how much I still feel like a teenager myself, when I look at our girls it's pretty obvious they're growing up beautifully despite my denial of the passage of time. Annie is finally feeling better after her many days of vet visits. She's now on prescription dog food (who knew there was such a thing!) She's also on a couple of medications and gets B-12 injections every Friday for several weeks. At one point we thought we might lose her, but other than having to give her really smelly dog food, which she loves, things are much better. In the past 2 weeks we had 3 sick....Laura, Ian, and Bethany, but I think they're all FINALLY feeling better. Ok, Bethany and Ian are. Laura keeps relapsing. The health center at Mines thinks she's had swine flu. We're just not sure. I do know that her dorm is quite cold since the heat hasn't been turned on yet. Her grandparents all came thru, though, and showered her with warm clothes, blankets, slippers, etc. Hopefully this will help. She has 2 windows in her room and she said if she sets a mug of hot cider on her window sill it only takes about 30 seconds to become apple juice. That's cold! Last night Brian drove up to visit with her and they spent the night at a Hampton Inn. She was happy to get a decent meal and a hot shower. Hopefully that will help. And on his way home this morning he'll stop at Amy's campus to bring her home since she has a long weekend! She's bringing at least one friend who wanted to get away...possibly more. Never a dull moment! Culinary school agrees with her and she's loving college life. Other than weekends, Brian will be gone for the next 3 weeks. Hopefully we won't have any health, technology, or home repair emergencies while he's gone. And soon after he gets back we'll be headed to Denver to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra's 2009 Christmas show! It's so hard to believe this year rapidly heading into my favorite time of year...the anticipation and celebration of Christ's birth!!! For now, though, I'm just going to enjoy each day as it comes and continue to pray for health for our family and for several friends who have health concerns. To quote my favorite t-shirt..."life is good!"