Happy New Year 2011

Hi all,

Happy New Year from Team Hyndman! We hope 2011 brings everyone good health and happiness.

It's been awhile since I posted for several reasons. I'm sure the holidays are so busy for everyone and they were for us! We all had "BUGS" (sinus infections, colds, etc.) for several weeks in December and Greg and I were REALLY sick, and still dealing with the last lingering symptoms. Luckily the kids were doing better by the time the holidays actually hit. Greg had to work a lot this year over the holidays. He got a few days off but we had to be creative in our own family celebration. We were able to pull off some special time together for celebrating that was actually very nice!

In December Isabella had a violin concert at school and we were amazed how good she and her classmates are doing with strings for just starting when school started this year. She really loves it. The concert was beautiful. They had the high school strings group play and they were REALLY good! Nick had wrestling and then he and many of the other team members got "mat rash" after a big tournament and Nick is still getting rid of his. This was a first experience for us with anything like this. We know it's part of wrestling and other sports but we can't way we love this part of it! So, Nick is still sitting it out and hopefully he'll be ready to wrestle again soon. I know he's anxious to get back into it. The kids got to celebrate our niece Lucie's third birthday and unfortunately, Greg and I were too sick to go. The kids also went with my Mom and Dad and their cousins to visit my brother Jimmie and Mike at their cottage in Indiana and they got to stay in a hotel, swim, and just have fun with their cousins!

One of the big things that happened in December is that Nick got his Drivers License the Wednesday before Christmas! We are so thankful to the driving instructor from Capabilities, Greg, who helped Nick to accomplish this goal! Now, we just have to get a vehicle with a lift for him so he can drive and go places on his own. For now, he'll have to drive with us or someone else still as he cannot get his wheelchair in and out of the van by himself. So, this is something we're going to be working on and hope to get an adapted vehicle for him in the next 6-12 months. (it's $8000-$12000 for the cost of the accommodations he needs!) We are SO proud of Nick for not giving up when he so many obstacles and extra steps/hoops to jump through to accomplish this goal. Even when Greg and I were so frustrated, he remained positive and didn't give up. We are SO proud of him for that!

Bella got another turtle to keep Shelly company. She named him Sheldon. They are really cute and I actually like them so much more than I thought I would. They're smart and Bella is really good at taking care of them!

We also went to The Nutcracker in December and our niece Maddie had two parts in it. We had seats right up front in the middle. It was fantastic, really beautiful!

I am going to write another post to talk about this some more but some of the holidays were not so great for us. Because of that, we decided just to close ranks, stick together and spend New Years Eve alone, just the four of us doing our own thing. It was PERFECT and just what we needed. Things always seem better when we're together and when we're hurting, time doing our own thing just makes things seem OK. We ended up having a great dinner, watching a movie and brought in the New Year TOGETHER which is the most important thing to us.

So, that's the update for the past month. I will be posting more regularly again and we hope 2011 is a great year for all of us!

Blessings:)
Amy

PS- We have some good friends who received some devastating health news just before the holidays so we have them and a family member dealing with cancer, surgery, and treatment this month and for the next several months at least. We are keeping them in our prayers and ask anyone who is willing to do the same. Never give up faith or hope!