Where have you been, Jen?

In a short answer? I have been playing "Hotel McManus" for weeks and weeks and weeks now.

Whew that was a crazy bunch of weeks. Last summer when the holidays and family plans came up for discussion, everyone (including me) thought that it would be a WONDERFULLY AWESOME idea that I NOT travel during the holidays. I am still taking chemo shots 3X a week so I get sick a lot and have a low immune system so traveling would have been a disaster. But that also meant that I was host to EVERY family member for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Was I stressed? Nah not really, I love my family. Did I freak out? Nope, although I did make my family help cook ALL those meals. Was it hard work? Maybe. I washed more sheets, blankets, and towels than I have in years. And I cleaned my house like a mad woman. AND I took a nap everyday no matter what everyone else was doing Did you have fun? I had a BLAST and so did everyone else. RIGHT?

So that is why I have been so quiet lately. I have been loving and being loved on by my family. And without sounding too sappy and silly, it meant a lot to me. Fighting for your life forces you to look at things differently and one of those things is spending time with family. God hand picked my family just for me and this year I was reminded of that even more.

This is my Mom's family. We haven't been "all" together since my wedding 9 years ago. What a blast we had. The weather was perfect, we did all the fun tourist things in Austin, and we were VERY LOUD!

Papa and Debi live in Austin now and we love having them close by. We loved celebrating the season with them. Here we are riding our neighborhood's hayride to see Christmas lights. (That is Hotel McManus in the background, we need to step it up on lights....huh?)

Adam's parents live 3 hours a way on a boat at the BEACH!!! I love the beach. And I also love that they drive up whenever just to spend time with us. We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Granny and Granddad.
Our oldest "son" Daniel still lives with us (which me might have to do FOREVER) and he loves to invite friends over to stay at our hotel. At one point we had 13 people sleeping in our house.

Have you booked time at the Hotel McManus??? We love hosting. We love having fun sharing our city with others. We love the eating. We love the cleaning (well ok I love the cleaning) And we love loving on others. So when can I pencil you in?