The Hazard Chronicles

 Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is likely the last post I will write in 2025. It's crazy to think that the year has gone so fast. I know a lot of people do family updates and stuff in their Christmas cards, but for us we typically do that here in the blog sometime in January, so you can be watching for that. Suffice it to say that 2025, I think, will be a year that we look back on as something important. College acceptances, jobs, driver's licenses, skiing, some key injuries...all these things will have shockwaves that last far into the future. Let's just say that for the first time in a long time I really have no idea what things will look like for us one year from now. Our family is in transition in a really good way, that much is certain. It's kind of fun.

Christmas this year has been a fun celebration so far. After work on Tuesday, Rach and I headed up for an overnight date at the Wallace house. We have some people staying there next weekend and we wanted to make sure everything was in order. Our retaining wall in the back has not fared so well with the weird weather recently, and I think we'll have a spring/summer project to work on in repairing that. I kind of like that stuff though. Also, these Wallace nights with just Rachel are really, really nice, and have had a stabilizing effect on our relationship. I like us and I like that we have a lot that we do together in so many areas of life. She is truly my best friend.

Last night (Christmas Eve) we went to a candlelight service at our church that had all the feels, and then drove back for a lovely dinner with Marissa and Wesley's family, and with Wendy, who flew up to be with us. We went home from that and did all our normal traditions, and then had a nice relaxed Christmas morning earlier today. I think everyone has had a good one. We've had jazzy holiday music in the background and that has been nice. Wendy was also with us for the whole time, and it was kind of fun sharing some of our family customs with her. 

Tomorrow, sometime around lunchtime, our family will load up the car and head to Canada. We've had enough of this warm weather, and we need some snow to slide on! We'll stay almost an entire week and hopefully make a lot of good memories along the way.

One of my favorite parts of today was over our brunch, when we all brought out our "bingo cards" that Evelyn had us do last year. These cards sort of acted as a bucket list of sorts, of things we wanted to accomplish in 2025. We read them off to each other, and it led to a lot of good memories of things we had done, both as a family and individually. It was neat.

Alright- that's it. So long 2025. It's been real.

Have a good week!

Just a few photos of the week. Our family went to see the Broadway tour of Kinky Boots! It was a fun night out.

Maren had her voice recital. I'll admit- I was a little nervous for this one. She chose to do that "December" song from Anastasia- the one with the really high notes- and I wasn't sure she'd be able to hit them. Turns out I didn't need to worry. She was hauntingly beautiful and nailed the important parts. She's pretty great.

We went to "Need a Little Christmas." It's a sort of Christmas variety show that happens every year around here. They do a good job, and Rachel got to play a role (I'll let you guess) in this year's production.