Wildest Dreams

Happs with the Bradbury Family 2010

This note did not make it out in Christmas cards this year so I figured a blog post would suffice. We went to Colorado Springs in September and had a fun and progressively wet family photo shoot with our favorite family photog, Staci. There were so many great pictures that I wanted to share some of them. Notice how through the course of the photo shoot the boys keep returning to the water until finally at the end, they just decided to get in and enjoy.

January: The whole family packed up our recently acquired Christmas presents and headed to Montgomery, AL, to spend 5 weeks at SOS (Squadron Officer School) with Adam. We lived in a tiny hotel room with a baby kitchen, we played around the south and spent some time on the beach with Meema and Buhpa (Michelle’s parents).

February: We came back home to our newly remodeled kitchen in the middle of February, just to prepare for Adam to leave on a month long trip to the sandbox at the end of the month.

March: Adam was gone for most of March and surprised us by coming home on Mackay’s 2^nd birthday. That was a nice family celebration.

April: We traveled every weekend in April: to Oklahoma to see our friends from Colorado Springs (the posse), to San Antonio to see Josh graduate from basic, to San Antonio again to visit aunt Stormy (and on official Air Force business), and to Dallas with Meema and Buhpa for a cousin’s wedding. Busy month with a lot of visiting.

May: Adam flew in a local Air Show and dropped the Wings of Blue from the USAFA (his former jump team). He spent the rest of the month preparing and participating in a readiness inspection with his squadron. Brigham started playing 3-year-old t-ball, which was totally hilarious and awesome. Mackay played a lot of trains and spent a lot of time running around in the backyard.

June: Brigham continued to play t-ball and Mackay spent the last few practices and games out on the field catching more balls than any other kid. He even got a trophy at the end of the season. Adam spent all of June in Albuquerque training to be a Flight Safety Officer (FSO) and Michelle and the boys spent the last week in the month out there with him enjoying friends and the cooler mountain air.

July: We were at home for a few weeks and then headed north and west to spend a the rest of the month with our friends and family in Utah/Idaho. We hiked and boated and played and had a great time.

August: Back to Texas to start work, playgroups, and running around all over again. Brigham started 3-year-old soccer at the end of the month and Adam and Michelle went on a date.

September: Both of the boys started attending preschool 2 days a week and transitioned well. We had a lot of soccer fun with Brigham and spent the rest of our free time working on house projects and preparing for Adam to deploy.

October: We spent the first week in October on a family fun vacation in San Antonio. We went to Sea World and ate at both Panera and Chipotle. What more could you want for a weekend? Michelle began both parent mode about mid-month and was busy keeping up with school for the boys, dental appointments for herself, soccer games and Fall Festivals.

November: We muscled through November and kept busy with school and house and activities. We took a day trip to Ft. Worth and enjoyed several weekly playgroups. We had Thanksgiving with some good friends and are grateful for all that we have.

December: Christmas parties, flu, and working more on the house—that pretty much sums up the first few weeks of December. Michelle has spent a lot of her free time painting and cleaning and finishing the final few house projects. Adam’s mom and sister, Susan and Kellie, spent Christmas with us and we had a good time.

So there was a lot of talk about our house this year. We were busy. We remodeled our kitchen at the end of last year and Michelle finally finished painting it this fall. We got our master bedroom/bathroom finished and furnished and it is wonderful. We just got new cabinet fronts for the bathroom doors and Michelle is in the process of painting them white. We also had the stairs carpeted recently—no more tack strips in the house anywhere!!!

We are painting and cleaning and praying that soon someone will buy our house. It will go on the market within the next month. It is bittersweet. The bitter is that we have worked so hard on this house and finally have it just the way we want it, just in time to sell. We knew it would work that way, but we love this house. It is beautiful and we will miss it.

The sweet is that our family is being relocated to Hill Air Force Base (Layton, UT) in a few months. We are so excited to live near family, mountains, and better drinking water for a few years. We cannot believe it is time to leave here, but we just celebrated our 4^th Christmas in our house. It is time. We are prayerful it all goes well.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday and pray that 2011 is the year all of your wildest dreams come true.