Friday, December 21, 2012

2012: A year in Review!

I've been away from the blog for a little bit. All sorts of sad things happened between the 10th and now, and I've found myself reading the bible a lot, and just trying to make sense of how innocent children can suffer. Heart breaking, and awful, and I just didn't want to write for days, and I'm still not ready to throw myself back into the new year, except for maybe a post about what our plans for 2013 are, and this post here, about our 2012...

-We arrived in SC just a few days before Christmas last year. We spent our "winter break" exploring the area, trying not to get lost, and enjoying the cooler weather! The boys loved being with G-Ma and Papa for Christmas, and it was kind of neat to wake up every morning to a full house and try to warm our tooshes by the fire. We celebrated Mikey's 3rd birthday with his Aunt Sarah still in town on the 29th, and our futures looked bright and promising!






-January and February were spent hunting for jobs. I found one first - right in the beginning o f January, with a crappy company, that only lasted 3 days. We celebrated Johnny's 1st birthday on the 29th of January. J's cousin Lara and her husband brought their little girl Colbie down for a visit. Then J found a job in February, which was so rad, because it allowed us to get our own place!




-March was all about striking out on our own, renting a house just a few doors down from G-Ma and Papa (yeah, quite adventurous of us, I know). I was also offered a job at TD bank right before my birthday, so things were really moving along nicely at that point. We celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary on the 4th,  and my 29th birthday on the 15th of March!





-April was sweet and spent enjoying our very first true spring as a family. Everything exploded with life - it was amazing, yet terrifying, as I narrowly escaped with my own life from all the bees and wasps. We celebrated Easter with an egg hunt at G-Ma's and Papa's, and spent a lot of time working on the yard of our rental home.

                    

                    

                                               


-May continued to be beautiful. We spent a lot of time outside, and a lot of time coveting a house down the street that we were hoping to buy. Renting wasn't the worst thing ever, but when a bird whispered in our ears that the home was possibly going to be going on the market, we tracked down the owners to meet with them. Aside from the home and all the beauty of the surrounding area, both Mikey and Johnny came down with some sort of plague, which involved a horrible rash for him! Yikes! Also, we celebrated Memorial Day with G-Ma, Papa and J's cousin Jess and her husband Shane. It was a great BBQ, and we all were stuffed silly!







-June was gorgeous. Gosh, I'm starting to notice a theme. I never really appreciated May/June in AZ because it was already so god awful hot by then. True, I was still absolutely terrified by the bugs, but the dream of the house down the street becoming ours was looking more and more likely. In the mean time, we enjoyed as much time as possible out on screened in porch of the home we were renting, and ate lots and lots of hot dogs & pickles!




-July was hot, folks! Super hot! And full of mosquito's, and a fun trip to the zoo, but also full of us closing on our new house and moving in! We celebrated the 4th of July uneventfully on the Deck of G-Ma and Papa, and didn't get to watch the fireworks that night, but that is ok, hopefully in 2013! We closed on the home on the 27th, and spent the last weekend of July moving out of the rental and into our new home. It was so great! We celebrated J's 33rd Birthday on the 30th of July, and went to sleep in our new house for the first time that night!








-We spent August getting cozy in our new home. It was the fastest unpacking in history with the help of G-Ma and Papa, and out super awesome neighbor Mrs. Ann! August was also crazy on the job front, because I was laid off by TD! Fortunately, I was offered a job in another department at TD, but ultimately ended up taking a 6 month contract doing reporting analyst work for GE Power and Water. It appears likely that I will at least have my contract extended another 6 months, but it is also possible that they will hire me permanently (keep your fingers crossed!). We also go the opportunity to see a minor league game at Fluor Field!







-September marked the start of me working from home, just in time to enjoy the first signs of fall. All of our leaves were brilliant shades of orange and yellow, and we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the slightly cooler weather. Outside of that, we also adopted a kitten! Meet Fitz!


 


-October was beautiful. The weather was amazing. I started baking pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies. I even tried to make pumpkin pancakes (fail). I started pumping out beef stews and pot roasts faster than my family could eat them. We celebrated G-Ma's 63rd birthday on the 10th. We celebrated Halloween by carving pumpkins on the front porch and trick or treating in the neighborhood. Johnny was a dinosaur, and Mikey was a transformer! We bought entirely too much candy for the amount of trick or treaters in the neighborhood, so it all ended up going to J's office the next day.











-November was fantastic. The weather was getting nice and cool, and we had an early Thanksgiving to look forward to (and Aunt Sarah was going to fly in). The leaves started falling like crazy, which we tried to stay on top of, but eventually we just let the leaves win. We spent Thanksgiving with a crowd of family, and decided to end our evening early to avoid the boys staying up too late. I did zero shopping the day afterwards, which was even better! We spent a few more days with Aunt Sarah before she had to head home.





-December marks our 1 year anniversary of arriving in SC. We still have a lot left to see of our new home in the South East, and a lot of exploring to accomplish. We are getting ready for Christmas, and trying to get the boys excited for it every day by hiding the Elf in a new spot each evening, and watching lots of Christmas cartoons. I've been reading Christmas books to Mikey almost every night, and his favorite so far has been the Nativity Story. We are looking forward to a small celebration with G-Ma, Papa and of course, Aunt Sarah. Our year has been so amazing - we are truly blessed, and are looking forward to what the new year will bring us!


 




WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


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