The end of 2016 was very active for my family. Before the holidays, my grandmother (called Mema) was in the hospital and we went to visit her. Once the 23rd of December came around, my siblings and I went to our dads for Christmas and our mother went to visit our grandmother in the hospital. At the end of the day, my older brother arrived home. He has been up north and lived in Iowa for the longest time. It has been four years since any of us have seen him and he flew down to surprise us. As he opened the door, however, there was no greeting and confusing phone calls and text messages to convey we was home and his old room is now painted lavender and houses my sister.

As time went on, our grandmother went from being released from one hospital to having to go back in a new hospital not even 24 hours later and then transferred to a third hospital. While she was transferred and flown to where she needed to go, my mother caught up with my older brother and they went to see Mema in the hospital. During this time, my siblings celebrated Christmas at our fathers and one of our stepsisters came over to help celebrate. I was completely surprised with how well that day went since my dad has favorites with the older stepsister 1st and my brother, sister, younger stepsister, and I are in a four-way tie for second.

From Christmas onward, all seven of Mema's children came to see her in the hospital, including some cousins and of course my siblings (with the exception of my little brother who wanted to surprise his girlfriend at the airport when she came back from her flight). While the little brother was with his girlfriend, we spent time with our older brother at Defy Gravity and bounced on trampolines because he wanted to go the day before when we passed it on our way to Carrabba's (which was disappointing since I was blamed for the hair in my salad which was black and I am blonde, as well as being called ma'am which I am frankly annoyed with and may vent out in a future article). There is nothing greater, or possibly weirder, than a 27 year old man, a 19 year old boy, and a 13 year old girl bouncing on trampolines together.

When it was time for my brother to go to the airport, we all went to say goodbye and ended the year with memories made of our brother and sad ones of our grandmother who is still stuck in the hospital. We even got to have a second Christmas since we came back from our dads to our mothers with unopened presents (my favorite being when our mother opened the grill my sister and I got her).

And how will 2017 turn out?

(Note: Please read onward only if you understand sarcasm...)

I can tell that 2017 is obviously going to be my year since only the second day I was sick and ended the day hooked to an IV and had to get a CT scan which basically ended in "The blood work was normal and nothing significant in the CT scan... Maybe a virus? Idk."

Here's to 2017 and chicken noodle soup!