For those following, may we humbly request...

May we humbly request your forgiveness for the lack of updates, and your indulgence for the reading of why we've been absent.  I know that it may seem that we've abandoned the blog, and I guess it's partially true.  This year has been one to remember.  Unfortunately it's one that we, in our darker moments, would prefer to forget.

Some of you may know, but for those that don't...before we took ownership and named this property Shangri La it was owned by Shelly's folks.  If you have read the blog update Life Intervenes, you'll know that we lost Shelly's mom in March.  We've found that the loss of Shelly's mom is inextricably tied to the things we do up here to the old family property.  Before her passing, with every project we completed, whether big or small, Mom would get a full report.  She was very supportive of everything we were doing, and was always expressing her happiness that we were up here.  The bottom line is, without being able to update Mom we couldn't bring ourselves to update y'all.  We're sincerely sorry about that, but there it is.

You may be wondering, as I might if I was reading this...  What has been going on for the eight months since?  Unfortunately, more upheaval followed.  The loss of Mom would have been enough for us to contend with for one year, but 2013 wasn't done with this family.  Just two short months after we lost Mom, an aunt who Shelly was close to died very suddenly.  Then, nearly two months to the day after that, Shelly's dad had a stroke.  Thankfully he is recovering and doing well, but it was another sucker punch to the jaw when we were already reeling.

Only until recently were we beginning to feel like ourselves again, with Shelly scratching and clawing her way out of an understandably serious case of depression.  We thought, hoped, and prayed we might make it out of 2013 with all family members unscathed, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Just last week our nine year old nephew, who was up here with his dad for his very first hunt, had to be life-flighted from Gaylord to Detroit Children's hospital.  They found that he had a ruptured brain aneurysm, and he has spent the last week clinging to life and enduring no less than four cranial surgeries. As of this writing he has miraculously stabilized, and the sedation which has held him in a coma-like state has been removed.  We don't know to what extent he will be affected by the trauma to his brain, and won't know until the sedation wears off and he begins to respond.  No matter how positive the outcome, he will have a long and arduous recovery.  If you're someone inclined to prayer, we humbly ask that you send one up for our nephew Collin.  If you're not inclined to prayer, we ask that you please keep him in your thoughts.

So, where does all this leave us?  That is still to be decided, but I suspect that when the dust settles we'll dust ourselves off and get back to doing what we do around here.  If you've been following the blog for a while, you've likely figured out from my writing that I'm not a doom-and-gloom kind of guy.  I believe that in the overall balance of a life, if someone is open to looking for the good, they'll find that the good outweighs the bad.  That being said, I have never felt this belief as sorely tested as it has been this year.  I don't know how soon we'll get back to regularly updating things here, but we will get back to it.  We have found great enjoyment in chronicling our progress up here, and we want to and will feel that again.

Thank you for reading.