She's Alive!

Delayed flights, photo appointments, mini-holidays, car accidents, lost cell phones, overtime, classes, design deadlines, celebrations, infections, soldering fun, learning, bonding, blog overhauls, CHA finds and wants, laughter, creativity, relaxation, insane allergies, organization, planning, sleeping, and love - all of this and so much more has happened over the last month or so since I last updated my sweet blog. My heart has been warmed by the many concerned emails and phone calls I've received asking if everything is okay and if I'm/we're alright.

All is good in the Ales household. While we're crazy busy as always (well at least one of us is), I'm working hard to get life to slow down a bit. Things have been running at such a frantic pace that I'm missing the things that are most important to me. My life is going through a major overhaul - much of which is long overdue. While many of the decisions were quite difficult to make, I'm glad they've been made and that life will begin to {hopefully} slow down a bit more and I'll be able to do the things I most need to accomplish.

Onto fun things...

A few weeks ago, I was able to fly to Portland, Oregon to visit my birth family and enjoy their sweet, tender selves. Seriously - they're awesome! One of the many fantastic things we did was hire Ashley and her husband Wendel to come and be our photographers for an afternoon. Oh what fun we had! Tonight, I received a couple of photos to tide me over until the discs of proofs arrive. After seeing these, I absolutely cannot wait! We had such a great time taking photos, and just being ourselves. It was such FUN! (Sheri, here are the ones I have so far!)

And seriously, how fantastic does my great grandmother look? We had these photos done on her 91st birthday - man am I ever glad that I have some of her genetics. Seriously, she is GORGEOUS, outgoing, and such fun to listen to.

Also, while I was in Portland, I had the incredibly awesome opportunity to take a basic soldering class from the goddess of soldering - Mrs. Sally Jean! Talk about FANTASTIC... seriously. I will take any class she offers any time. It was absolutely fantastic. I've uploaded the photos I took of her gorgeous studio to Flickr and you can scope out the goodness there. I'll post later about class and the great things I learned. Seriously, I was in heaven!

I need to jet to bed (it's a new goal to get a good number of quality sleep hours in), but wanted to send out a quick update. Yes, I'm alive - though barely on occasion. Thank you again for your kind words and kind concern. I promise to come back and update again soon. There are so many things I want to make sure and share with you!