catching up... yep, this is long

sorry for not posting anything new (to any of you who have checked lately)... please forgive me. i'm going to try to do some quick catching up (and maybe you'll see why i haven't had time to blog!). first, we had a GREAT time in MN with the abbott clan. we traveled all day friday and arrived late that night at lucy & paul's (ed's sister & hubby). the next morning, john walked in the door and shared the good news - no second surgery that week! thank GOD! (john's in a "wait & see" mode with the doctors. in mid-february (?), he'll go back for a scan and that's when they will look to see if there are any remains of his tumor. that's also when decisions about radiation/chemo/surgery will be determined. he looked great and it was a relief for the boys especially to see uncle john looking as well as he did. (poor guy had taylor pretty much hanging on him every chance he got!)
on our way home, we wrote down all of the fun things we did with our family (the highlight for everyone was seeing uncle john, of course, but the rest of the week was great too!). among the exciting adventures: the mall of america (cindy & i will never shop with paul again!), boot hockey and ice hockey on the lake at grandma & grandpa's, game night at cindy & tom's, checking out rick & cheri's wonderful new home, midnight mass for Christmas eve (not drew's preferred service! - drew got sick Christmas morning!), sledding - despite the total lack of snow! apparently, it was more like a slip-n-slide... swimsuits might have been helpful! - and, of course, the "full family" Christmas day party at the hotel (everyone was there! we can't wait to get a copy of the photos!) and the bowling party (where buffy was actually on the winning team!! okay, thanks mainly to anthony & paul...) - both of which were wonderfully fun!! okay, that was just Christmas! geez!
New Year's was fun - the kids were gone so we went to a party with our small group where we had such a great time playing cards that i (buffy) ended up having to drag ED out because i was so tired! since then, we've just been trying to get back into something close to "normal". soccer starts up again for evan and noah is starting on a new instrument (from clarinet to bass clarinet - it's almost bigger than he is!). taylor tried out for baritone sax (he currently plays alto sax)... no decision yet. hmmm, i guess there's nothing new for drew at the moment... ? he's getting geared up for the next season of baseball. this spring he moves up into a tougher bracket and he's dreading it. but he & ed are working on his batting, so maybe when the season starts, he'll feel better prepared than in past years.
well, that's about it. i should confess that my house is a disaster zone - i've done NO laundry or cleaning at all lately (augh!) - because seeing both sides of our family shamed me into finishing our wedding thank you notes! i'm sorry to those of you who will receive our tardy thanks. we may not have told you right away - but we're very grateful and have been all along! :)
now that i'm done writing those (thus the condition of our home), i think ed & i are finally going to sit down and look at our wedding pictures and choose those! wait, that will come after the house gets cleaned... then we'll do pictures. my sister, kathy, gave us a deadline for the pics (very helpful - i work well with deadlines!), so we have to tackle this job before january 31... (but i'll try to fit in updates in the meantime too!)