Hmmmm, not liking this pattern

We are still here, under all the snow. We broke a 121 yr record in December for snowfall, aren't we excited. Maybe a little. And I think I'll just ignore that whole 30 days again, thing.

With all that snow you would think we were having the time of our life. However, the third time out with our snow mobiles we broke one, we actually got it so stuck that it had frozen mud and snow in it and it took us over two weeks to get it back to the house from the cabin, because of Brent and I being sick off and on. So no more playing in the snow with the mobiles. The good news is that our great friend that gave us the snowmobiles came over for New Years and helped us get the one running and get them both home. So after we get a little more ice chunks out of the one and get the key hole to deice on the other, we'll be riding again!

Shortly into Dec., the night before we received over a foot of snow, one of our snow blowers broke. So that entails taking our one remaining blower back and forth between the cabin and the farm. We don't have the funds this month to fix/replace it. And it takes several hours to blow each place, so when it snowed,( and it snowed, and it snowed, and then it snowed again, and then it drifted everywhere, and then it snowed again, ALL MONTH) we were busy blowing it everywhere, so we could get in and out of our driveways and to our animals.

Then Brent and I both got a virus that took us out of commission for about 5 days. So now we're behind and who knows when we'll ever see the gravel of our driveway again!! Maybe in April. The basic premise behind blowing is that not only will you not get your car stuck, (which by the way Brent managed to do this week,) but when the weather does "warm up", you know to like 25 degrees or even a whopping 32, the thin layer of ice/snow that you have on the drive, will melt and you will once again be walking/driving on gravel/concrete. And yes we had a major thaw, but it was the weekend Brent and I were sick, so did we get anything cleared? NO!

Thankfully one of our farmer neighbors is helping us out with his tractor that has not only a front loader, but a gigantic and I do mean gigantic snow blower on the rear. But his idea of when we actually need digging out is a bit different than ours, so we're still dealing with drifts and minor snowfalls, which still takes a lot of time.

So maybe you can see why I've not had time/energy/motivation to post. Because you have to remember that in between the blowing,( which at times has been every day or every other day,) we still have to feed 6 kids, 4 dogs(we've been dog sitting all month), 4 cats, 2 snakes, 2 horses, 2 rabbits and 1 turtle. Oh yeah and 60+ chickens. Then the kids have this thing called school that we're supposed to do everyday, and there's laundry and cleaning and don't forget the things that take us out of the house, such as archery, church, shopping for food (for some reason people in this house insist on eating three+ times a DAY!) and so on and so forth. And I've been sick all of December with one thing or another.

The first week of Dec. we all ended up with a respiratory virus that was miserable. Collin ended up with another ear infection, Max got an ear infection to the point that his ear drum burst, and Amanda had to go to the Dr. to prove to her that she wasn't coming down with bronchitis again and that she really could go back to school. I got to go visit the Dr this week because the stuff in my head had decided that it was bored being there and moved into my lungs. So now I'm on antibiotics. But the x-rays show no pneumonia, we checked just in case.

I'm now turning my kids into germaphobics and I and the two youngest are not going to church until we're 100% better. The house is becoming a sterile place to live, you know as in bleach, anitbacterial sprays, and anything else I can think of to keep germs at bay.

We've explored a lot of angles on why it's been such a really bad 6 mths of respiratory issues(I actually haven't been 100% healthy since June 12th) and we're still not finding any clear cut answers. We moved out of the house for 5 days in August and it didn't help, we've had the house examined for mold and other issues. Than was seen by an allergist and given a battery of allergy tests. We've all taken rounds of allergy meds, and used essential oils and we're currently on high doses of vit C. We just do not know. Even with six kids we've never passed stuff around before, and I've never had kids with ear issues, till now. So we'll keeping working at getting healthy and hopefully we'll find something that works. I'm thinking garlic is going to be added soon.

And now I'm tired remembering all that!! We did have a good Christmas, Brent and I were still recovering, but able to do all the usual stuff. We've had a good two weeks off with the kids. Today we're off to sled with a friend and then go swimming, I'm thinking I'm going to sit in the hot tub, maybe....it's awful cold when you get out!!