Bone broth's been working

My knee is nearly healed, and I have resumed neighborhood walks and elliptical training at 24 HR Fitness. I'm sure the bone broth has helped get my body the nutrients it needs to cushion my joints against further injury. The right knee is doing better as well.

The Holidays have come and gone. We didn't even get a Christmas poem and card written this year. It has just been too busy.

I volunteered as the chairperson for the Scouting fund raising drive this year, which consists of one event, which is the Christmas tree recycling project. It consumed the better part of three Saturdays to distribute flyers, organize the volunteers, and finally to pick up the trees and gather and account for the donations (which are still trickling in in the second week of January). We also got the big snow storms on both of our flyer days, and still had much snow and ice on the pickup day on January 3rd. The scouts were amazing however, and despite the occasional complaint of "are we done yet?" did an fantastic job. We had mostly parent volunteers, but this year, even had an Elder volunteer that only has your children. He drove his pickup truck and towed the big trailer lent to us by a member of the Salmon Creek ward who has a small farm and a lot of such equipment. Our collections were less than half that of last year, however, for the scouts the participated, they made a little over $6 per hour of time invested. That's still a pretty good return for a volunteer service.

Christmas was a cozy event at our home. No extended relatives visiting this year, but we did get some time with my oldest daughter Bri and my new son-in-law Grant, who were officially staying at his parents (about 20 minutes away). We also had my second oldest daughter Kristi come home from college at BYU Idaho for the holidays. Finally, our house-guest Ashley and her boyfriend James spent much of the Holidays with us as well. The other four kids still live at home, and enjoyed the family traditions of the Christmas countdown (a scrapbook with a scripture, song, and story for each of the 25 days till Christmas in December). Story time is ended with a candy from the countdown chains, which hava a special chocolate Santa on Christmas Eve. This year, we also visited the Vancouver Festival of the Nativities. Traci, Misti, and I split time on the camera to capture pictures of most of the nativites and artwork there. I put this to a selection of some of my favorite nativity music for a stunning slide show (which is great for family, but since it contains much that I'm sure is secured by artists copyright, cannot and should not be distributed beyond our immediate family per acceptable use).

Next week (Tuesday), I will undergo a couple of surgeries to restore my hearing, and widen my nasal passage. This should be the last of the surgeries for the foreseeable future (yeah). I have so much pain killer left from the last two, I won't even need to fill my new Rx this time around. I appreciate your thoughts and prays.