I'm still here

I swear!!! Life has been very crazy since school started in September. We decided to move houses into one that was better suited for the children we may have sometime this decade. That took us way more work than we anticipated.
The house we live in now is the house my husband lived in until he was 8. His parents kept it as a rental after they moved and we decided to buy it instead of the one we were living in. (His parents sorta own that one too). Basically we swapped houses so we now live in (and own!!) the one that was a rental, and the house we lived in is a rental. Still with me?
In any event because our new place was a rental it needed some work before we could move. It took us a month of hard cleaning, painting, patching, and general fixing up before we could move in. We're in now though and we absolutely adore this place.
I'm weird when it comes to houses. I can usually tell right away if a place is "home". It took me a long time to feel at home in the condo I used to live in and our old house. In my parents new place and this place I instantly felt at home if that makes any sense. I love it! The neighbourhood is great (actually quiet!), the neighbours are fantastic and we are much happier here. It was worth all the work, but it was exhausting.
In the midst of our renos my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. We had a few weeks of fear, anger, sadness...you know all the usuals. The good news was that they caught it earlier and she elected to have a mastectomy on the one side. A decision that ended up being the right one because it would have probably returned had she just had a lumpectomy. This was the beginning of October and she is doing amazingly. We still haven't heard from the Cross Cancer which likely means she won't need radiation. I always knew my Mom was an amazing lady, but watching her go through this has just reaffirmed that.
We also had Christmas at our new place which was awesome. There were 16 people here! We would have never fit that many people in our old house.
Now I'm busy getting ready for our second semester. I won't have a prep this semester, so I'm a little scared, and trying to get as much done ahead of time as possible. I'm also super excited to be teaching Physics 30 and Fashion Studies. I can't wait.
I also did my first photoshoot last weekend! Friends wanted me to do their engagement shots, and while I'm not a pro I had so much fun. So I'll end my verbal diarrhea post with a few of the shots from that. Happy New Year!!