This December Shilo ran his 3rd Marathon and I ran my 2nd. It was in Temple, TX so we recruited Gamble and Meghan to run with us. Shilo and Gamble Finished under the 2 hour mark, so naturally there are no pictures of them finishing, they even had enough left to run back a mile and push us to the end. It is sad to say that I shaved 30 minutes off of my time, and finished 45 minutes after the guys. I'll just say Meghan and I had a bonding time. We walked, ran, and chatted. Can't ask for a better way to spend 3 hours, unless your on a beach reading a really good book. I think that's next on the list, I'm sure Meghan is game. Our next race is in February and our 2nd Triathlon is in April.

Snow Buddy

In December things were crazy, but I wanted to share a few things that happened. We had snow one morning. It was crazy, out of no where all of a sudden there were flurries. I made Elijah go out side a take pictures, he wasn't impressed "it's just rain" he said. We sent chopping and there were 3 inch snowmen. It was fun

Disaster

On December 16th Maureen called our home at 1:01am. She was crying and she said the shop was on fire. Shilo jumped out of bed and frantically tried to get dressed to get over there. I got up with him and we said a prayer to help settle us down. He left and I stayed with worry set in and expecting the worst. At 1:19am Shilo called me and said it was horrible get a sitter and come out with him. I called Uncle Gene. He showed up with Aunt Ann and she stayed with the kids, Shilo came back and picked me up and we went to see the flames. It was horrible, I've never seen fire up close and personal, but take it from me, you never want to see anything you own going up in flames. I cried, prayed, and cried some more. This was our hopes and dreams on fire. This was our life up in flames, this was our lively hood ablaze.

You might think that this is the worst thing that could happen. You might think we would be angry or wonder what we had done wrong. But the truth is we're not mad and it wasn't anything we did, but a crazy battery charger. From that terrible morning we've had people calling and offering to take care of our kids so I can go help, offers to help clean up the mess, offers to give us money if we need it, offers of dinner, offers to use their work location and tools til we get up and going, offers of interest free loans, offers of discounts on tools (you better believe we'll take you up on that one!!), and even a business down the road bringing lunch for free to our guys who were out in the rain trying to figure out what to do!

You might think we'd be upset, but really all we can be if happy! Happy that we are loved, happy for the help, happy that we are all safe, and happy that we have insurance.

208 Cimarron

We moved to 208 Cimarron in July. This house is pretty much double the size of our last one, so we can now stretch our legs a little. With the bigger house we decided to get a bigger tree. For FHE we decorated it. With the bigger tree we had lots of space to cover and not a lot of decorations to use. I guess those little trees didn't take too much. We pretty much had fun. Ethan got a little carried away and had to do some wall sits, but other than that no broken ornaments and no tears from the kiddos.

Music Time

I have always been partial to music. I played piano for many years, then played the flute and percussion in school. Shilo was in choir and he learned to play the violin. Both of us enjoy different kinds of music and now for the first time we got to be in the audience listening to a concert. Stormy is now in the VISD orchestra. She plays the cello. VISD has a program for 4th and 5th graders who are interested, they pick an instrument and if they can get rides to and from they can participate....oh yeah did I mention Stormy got a brand new cello. Yeah, they gave my 9 nine year old a brand new cello. We are so proud of her. Besides the cello, Stormy takes piano lessons from me, and she sings in the De Leon 4th and 5th grade choir. WOW! I think she got the music gene.

One Year older and Wiser

The Fall brings lots of Birthdays in the Monney household. I guess I was a good girl because I even got a cake!!

My kiddos surprised me with new running socks, new scriptures, and a beautiful opal ring:)

Shilo, (the old man in the house) celebrates his birthday in October. He got TONS of gifts for his office. Either he doesn't need anything, or he's really hard to shop for. He had a yummy German Chocolate Cake from his Mom....yummmmm (Nanny's recipe)

Bowling Memories

Grandma Vela and Abby

Elijah

Ethan

Cumorah

Stormy