Goodbye 2022!

I can't believe that 2022 is here and gone! What a crazy year... so many significant and life changing events happened this year. Losing mom and planning her funeral, taking care of her estate and cleaning out and selling her home (getting all her affairs settled), finding out the news of Robin's metastatic breast cancer, full swing building of our home and all the details of overseeing that, getting our old home of 20 years ready to put on the market, growing with the changing relationship with our children and seeing Katelyn off on her mission and the joy of having a missionary serving are just a few examples. Through it all we've experienced incredible growth! We've been able to experience JOY in the hard and the good and the day to day blessings of the Plan of Salvation. We've enjoyed being grandparents to Luke and the wonderful blessing he is in our life, as well. Having Megan and Todd nearby has brought so much happiness into our lives! 2023 stands to be another very eventful year as we complete our home and make the move to a new area and ward. Katelyn will return home from her mission in early December (to a new ward) and we'll be able to spend the holidays together with her in our new home! We will be involved in landscaping and beautifying our new property and other projects that go along with that. We have so much to be grateful for and so much to look forward to in 2023!

Below is the puzzle that Katelyn sent us for Christmas. It's "Rainbow Row" in Charleston, SC. Someday I would love to visit and see it in person! We started this last night, and I went to bed. Dad and Brooke stayed up and finished it. When I walked into the kitchen this morning, this is what I saw! We watched the Ohio State v. Georgia game tonight and played Shanghai Rummy to ring in the new year. Unfortunately our Bucks didn't do so well. They played their hearts out but lost it in the very last part of the last quarter-- 41-42! It was a great game, though. It was a quiet New Year's Eve at the Freeman home!

Exhilarating Ensenada!

We had a day at sea all day yesterday and realized we didn't take any pictures! We basically lounged around all day, so we were READY to go and explore again today!! I've never been to Ensenada so it was a fun, new stop for me! We had another adventurous day today!!! We started by meeting our tour guide just outside of the port-- it was about a 5 minute walk to get there. His name was Miguel and he basically was our driver for the entire day! We got to do so many things because it was just us! He drove us up into the beautiful mountains where we ziplined and did some ropes course bridges! It was so FUN! I wasn't expecting the ropes course at all. They were in between the ziplines and were pretty cool! There weren't as many ziplines today but it included the bridges so it took us about an hour to finish it. Then our driver took us about 5 minutes away to ride ATV's. This was FUN!! We rode for over an hour and the course was fun! It had just rained so it wasn't dusty at all! We saw some beautiful scenery on our ride. There were some steep places and more difficult areas to get through, so it wasn't an easy course, either. At one point, Brooke's ATV conked out and we'd gotten pretty far ahead, so our guide told us to wait and he went to see what happened. I was worried that she'd gotten hurt so when he came back and explained that he just had to restart it, I was relieved!! I was thinking all sorts of things! He stopped every now and then and took pictures of us. There was some mud, but I managed to get around all the puddles pretty easily. When we finished the course, we got back in the car and Miguel took us to go horseback riding. Today was the coldest day so far, and by the time we got to the horses, it was pretty chilly! We rode on the beach so there was a breeze which made it even more cold. But it was supposed to rain while we were there, so we were so lucky it didn't. It had rained the night before and was supposed to rain again tomorrow. Our whole vacation we just hit everything perfectly! The horses were fun and it was a beautiful day riding along the beach!! We had to cut our ride a little short as we were running out of time. We didn't get to go see the blow hole "La Bufadora" because we didn't have time. Miguel took us back downtown which was about a 45 minute drive. Brooke really wanted to get another Pina Colada before we left, so he took us to a place downtown where we got one in a pineapple! The guy must've thought we were crazy because it was so cold out. By this time I was shivering I was so cold. The air was damp and cold!! I bought some more Mexican vanilla. (I bought some in the market in Mazatlan as well.) I thought Jamie would like some, so I got her a bottle. I bought the clear kind, which they say is better... we'll see, I guess! Everyone wanted some more street tacos, so Miguel then drove us around the block to a little Tacqueria. They were so good and it was so nice to get out of the cold for a bit!! We had to eat quickly because we had to get back to the boat. Miguel dropped us off with plenty of time. He apologized for not being able to see everything, but we reassured him that he was awesome. It really was nice to have our own schedule-- we could move so much faster without a bunch of other people with us. After he dropped us off, I broke out into a run because I was so cold and just wanted to get back to our room. When we got there we all took steamy hot showers and got all cleaned up! What a fun day! It has been such a nice trip and such a nice break from our usual. We arrive in Los Angeles tomorrow and then have a long drive home... but I'm ready to get home and get back to normal. I will miss someone cooking and cleaning and doing the dishes for me though!!