This past weekend, Paul and I went home to see family. My brother Jon and his lovely wife Amanda had just introduced their new daughter Isabella Mae to their family, and I was eager to meet my first niece. It was so wonderful to see family and (a few) friends in wonderful Michigan! I wish I lived closer to my loved ones, but that will never happen if my loved ones can't be persuaded to move to South Carolina with us in a few years! Michigan has no teaching jobs so we will never be able to live there again. So I shall just have to hope and pray that my loved ones are eager for a South Carolina adventure like we are! :)
While in town, we were quite busy, as always:
On Friday, we saw Julie for lunch, Jon/Amanda/Isabella in the afternoon, and Paul's parents for dinner/evening.
On Saturday, we saw my parents in the morning, went to our nephew Wes' birthday party in the afternoon, and saw Rick, Kevin, and Kyle for dinner/evening fun.
On Sunday, we left right after lunch.
Even though time went quick, we didn't see everyone we wanted (like our nephew Quentin, who was napping during our entire visit to his sister Isabella! Boo!), and we came home tired and already homesick for Michigan, it was still good to come Home. Here is a picture of me and my new niece. Once upon a time, I was not fond of the idea of having a niece, since I don't understand females very well. However, I fell in love with Isabella at first sight! I hope we get along as she gets older! :)
Here is another picture of me, Paul, and Isabella. Jon said while taking the picture: 'Wow, Paul is actually smiling for the camera!' And it's true! I think that means that Paul was as proud and happy of the newest addition to our family as I was. :)
In other news, I have been working hard on my new year's goals: I have been working on my afghan, my quilt, and we finished the 30 day shred! woo hoo! Now we are starting a new exercise routine with our friends. We made an online calendar so that we can all see the exercises no matter where we live. When we do the exercise for the day, we put our names on that day of the online calendar. That way, it makes it both an accountability thing and a competition between friends to help us all push at working out diligently. We shall see how that works out!
