It was the Best of times...It was the Worst of Times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." Charles Dickens
This pretty much sums up the season for us! It's amazing to me to look back on the past few weeks and see,the good, the bad and yes even the ugly!
Last time I posted I shared our great opportunity to go to Disneyland for Thanksgiving and that was the best! The worst was next morning waking to a flood in our kitchen. The best was the plumbers (My Dad and my nephew Jens) came by to fix it the same day. The worst was that night Jon checks the crawl space underneath our kitchen to find the flood there too. The best of times was being able to buy a wet vac to help bail the water out. The worst of times was realizing we should have bought a bigger vac because their was 10 gallons of water down in the crawl space. The best of times is finally getting it cleaned up. The worst of times is having the pipe break again. The best of times is shutting off the ice-maker to the fridge and figuring we will deal with the leak after Christmas and again the plumbers come (Nephew, Jens and a helper) that day to fix it. The worst of times is a ward family has an unexpected emergency surgery and has sick children needing me to babysit and my car won't start. The best of times we have great neighbors that later that night helped jump start the car and it was just a dead battery. The worst of times is having several families in the ward needing immediate needs met right away. The best of times other families in the ward stepping forward to bless those families with their generosity! The worst of times heavy snow storm happens day of our friends Christmas party and having to cancel. The best of times schedule and snow gave us a break and we were able to go a little late and had a great time! The worst of times another flood happens in the kitchen with a different pipe this time. The best of times, no need for plumbers I was able to fix it myself! The worst of times was we were so busy we didn't get to decorating the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve day. The best of times is that we did get it decorated! The worst of times is Jessica had strep throat right before Christmas. The best of times is we got antibiotics and in 2 days time were up and running again. The worst of times is that it didn't go away. The best of times is the doctor didn't make us come in to get a new prescription they just called it in. The worst of times is we went to pick it up it was very expensive and I dropped it and shattered the bottle hitting myself in the leg with glass adn it went all over me and the car. After a good cry in the parking lot of Albertsons it was the best of times because when I went in expecting to pay for the expensive medicine again they just simply stated "Merry Christmas" hence the weeping commenced again but, this time out of gratitude! It was the best of times spending Christmas eve with the Hirschi's making gingerbread trains/trees and houses with cousins and re-enacting the Nativity. We had a wonderful Christmas with the Smith cousins and grandparents. Then it was the worst of times with Jon getting a violent illness. It was the best of times Jessica and I didn't really get it and we had wonderful neighbors that shoveled for us and checked up on us and really made us feel loved!
Bottom line about our holidays is: we were tremendously blessed among a few minor trials!