The Swarrell Life

I am sitting here eating some really good milk chocolate. I am surely more of a dark chocolate fan, but this is really good. What makes it so good? I am glad you asked! There are several reasons, which I will go into presently.   The first reason is that I like good chocolate, which is the obvious part. The second reason is that I didn't have to buy it. Bonus! The third reason is that it is really good because a good friend gave it to me as a gift. The fourth, and likely most significant, is that it was a going away gift. Going away? Going away from what? I am glad you asked!   For the past four years I have been employed at Eastern Oregon Medical Associates. Okay, that's what it was called until about two years ago. Now it is St.Luke's Eastern Oregon Medical Associates. But that employment came to an end about two weeks ago when I gave my notice. I gave my notice because I have taken a position with the local branch of the YMCA. No, I don't know the lyric...

So, I tried to add a picture to this post. Okay, I tried and did add another picture to this post. But somehow I posted the post before it was supposed to post. Get it? Me neither. But I do get busy. And so do we all. Busy with what? Never thought you'd ask...     We are currently feeding our friends' goats and chickens while they are on vacation. Dream job for kids! Okay, for me too. One perk for the kids is that, with it being really, really cold, I drive them from the goat feeding station to the chicken feeding station. I know, spoiled. But have you ever tried to keep a 2 year old's hand warm when it's 0 degrees? Not an easy task. The car works good, especially when they get to ride in the front seat with no seat belt. Relax, it's 50 feet on a driveway. Sheesh.     Another thing we do is sing. Here is the Harrell duet of "Jesus Loves Me"     Waiting for the music to start. Usually we roll in about the time the music starts. I was...

Okay, so this was going to be a nice little post that was all about smiles. But sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, so the theme changed from "smiles" to "part of our Christmas in McCall". It's not as concise and it's not as grand an idea, but we do have some smiles. And snow. If you must know, if I was going to do a post about smiles, it would have taken me at least 3 weeks to comb through all the pictures from this last year or so to find a whole bunch of ridiculously adorable pictures of me  the family smiling. In and of itself this is a big problem because we smile often . I just don't have that kind of time. The other problem is that I usually post all the good pictures here, so you would likely have seen them before. So McCall it is. With an opening picture like this, how could you not want to post about smiles. I mean, seriously! This was before Trinity's first school Christmas program. She grabbed Teagan and said, "pictur...

But you had to see the creepiest photos I have seen in a while. And I know the context! This is what happens when Teagan get the camera pointed the wrong way...and I am up too late.

Lots of fun in the snow lately, because that's what's been available. If I was a lot closer to the equator, I would be having more fun in the sand. So it goes! Along with the snow, there has been much action. These are no X Games, but they're pretty fun! In McCall there was a zip line. Still is actually. I don't know why I used the past tense. Next time I do that, slap me! But Trinity was brave enough to try it out. I ran beside her for safety, which was a really good thing since running in deep snow is hard . Whew! This action was just cute, not really that exciting. But if you're four, even falling down in the snow is fun! Jensen has an aversion to speed, so this is about as much action as she wanted. But she was always out there with us! Strangely enough, this was the most action Teagan wanted. I hope that's the case when he's 12. We went sledding with a couple other families on New Year's Day, which I talked a...