The McNair's 2024 Year in Review

The McNair's 2024 Year in Review

Hello and thank for coming to visit us at our family’s annual blog post. Welcome to 2025! We hope this year will be gentle and sweet to you.

We apologize for the lack of physical Christmas cards this time around. Our schedule, budget and mental capacity didn’t allow for it this year. Lara had some clever ideas she wanted to attempt but it just fell through the cracks, so keep an eye out for a fun card next year. In the meantime, we hope this picture of our family having a Christmas Party, rendered by Poppie-Fae, will do (above.)

Out of all our years of marriage (ten years celebrated in October,) this year probably held the most memorable plot twists and turns.

Prayer and the hunt of housing without a 7% interest loan in this crazy economy, lead us to a tiny town in Texas called Tulia. In February we bought the property sight unseen. April we started our voyage to a basically condemned building we are slowly transforming into our home sweet home.

Tulia Texas is located in Texa’s panhandle. Dry, flat and full of tornado warnings. Completely different terrain and temperatures from what we were used to in the beautiful state of Alaska. Culture shock is real and strong, but the sun rises and sunsets here in Tulia have been breathtaking. We confess, it is neat to be in such a small town. The people at the local restaurants, stores and libraries remember you by name.

The building we purchased was once an old cafe, the best and fanciest in town, the elderly locals recall. Then a famous artist named Kenneth Wyatt purchased the building and renovated it into a bronze foundry in the 70’s. Some of the equipment and supplies are still in the building. Now we own it! We been living out of a vintage camper in the back yard while we re-renovate the building. The dream is to have half the building become a home and the other half an art studio. Next to the house are 18 storage units. Renting them out has been paying for the renovation. Ideally, once the home is completed, the storage units will provide passive income so we can focus on freelancing and creating our art and puppet projects. In the mean time, our energy and focus has been home renovationprojects. Almost every thing we have accomplished thus far we have done by ourselves, lots of learning curves, patience and character building opportunities involved. YouTube has been our best friend and educator. Thrift stores, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, estate and yard sales have become our second homes and we search for second hand tools and supplies to help us complete our first home. We have a long way to go, but the progress is rewarding.

Not an ideal situation, but it keeps us debt and mortgage free and allows us to stay home with our daughter as we navigate parenthood and homeschool. Having front row seats to her growth and learning is full of special treasures and treats.

Early on we had tremendous help from Randy‘s Aunt Marilyn, Uncle Mike and cousin Jared who came to visit and cook healthy food for us when we were first getting started. They have a cool program they share with people that really dives into living the world of wisdom in a great way. https://www.fortheweakest.com.

Randy‘s good friend, David, also stayed for a while and earned his angel wings cleaning with us. We often talk about how we miss all their company around here and wish they could’ve stayed. We also had several members of our Branch come and rip out all the dirty linoleum tile on the floor. Talk about great first impressions.

Our family grew by two…. cats. We are now a three cat household. None of them we purposefully went out to obtain, but we love them all never the less. We brought our Feral Derrel down from Alaskan. It made for a long and noisy ride through Canada, but helped to distract us from the trailer dragging on the ground at every bump and Randy’s Dad’s old motor home coming apart below our feet. We picked up Tigger in Utah, Randy’s brother’s old cat, and a new stray joined up in Tulia. She walked right in and made herself at home. We call her New Cat.

Lara has unlocked a new deeper love of antiques, which are apparently plentiful in this region. She has been collecting a few fun pieces but trying to practice self discipline until the house is more complete.

She has been working on regaining her ASL in hopes to be fluent and comfortable. She gets extremely homesick for her family and Utah every several months and finds excuses to go visit. We have had several wonderful, and not so wonderful, trips spending time with family/friends and adventures along the way.

Randy survived an attack by a hobo spider this Thanksgiving, pretty gnarly wound, but he hopes that it will give him super hobo powers like the ability to find awesome second hand stuff and maybe smell fresh baked pies at long distance. He has perma-sandpaper hands with new cuts daily. Last night he polished a mighty scratch off of a DVD with just his index finger, obviously just the beginning of an emerging Super Hobo.

He found a derelict wood stove online for $50 and restored it. Best addition to the house so far. Every night is nice and cozy by the fire and slowly cleans the giant piles of old wood from the back yard.

Evelyn Poppie-Fae told us specifically to write that she loves crafts, going to dance class, doing ballerina dances and dressing up with all her fun costumes at home. A variety of creatures and creations built by Poppie are constantly scattered all around the house, she can play with her blocks and oversized Legos for hours at a time.

Poppie earned second place, in the junior department, at the Alaska State Fair for her pickled Fireweed shoots. She is looking forward to entering the fair here in Texas next fall.

This Christmas the only thing Poppie asked for was to be Little Red Riding Hood, and for an Easy Bake Oven pan. Both of her Christmas wishes came true! She has been creating tasty treats in her Easy Bake Oven ever since.

We all have been very active in our Church Branch here. It is small but mighty. The members have been very helpful and kind to us.

There are SOOOOOOOOOO many fun art projects we are itching to start/finish. So stay tuned for some fun zaniness.

We love you all so much and are so glad that we can call you family and friends. We appreciate you, stay in touch. Please tell us a little about your 2024 experience!