Year in Review

2010 started out pretty good.

My sister took me on a cruise for my 39th birthday

Joe and I made a road trip to Northern CA to attend my good friend's baby shower, 

and then later in the month she met her beautiful daughter.  I haven't been that happy for someone's referral since Gracie's.

February we celebrated 17 years of marriage.  

We also enjoyed watching the Olympics every minute that we could.  It brought back lots of good memories from our trip a couple of years prior to Vancouver.  Love that city.

I also started a regular walking regime and started losing some weight.  I wish I could get back into that routine but a back injury I sustained in the summer has kept me from starting  up again.

In March I continued my walking and Joe and I explored new trails.

I also made a concerted effort to be more thankful for the things I had.  

This book really helped me with that.

It rained. A lot.  It didn't stop us from walking though.

In April I was sick a lot.  I cut my hair.  

There was a pretty sizable earthquake on Easter Sunday.

The rest of April and most of May were one of the hardest times of my life 

and I can't share them here so I'm just going to skip right to June.

          

 In June Dragon Boat practice started and I started to finally enjoy things again.
 Joe joined with me and it was so fun to share that experience with him.

My photographer friend DeAnn took some awesome pictures of us. 

I have several them framed in our apartment.

I made a lot of handmade stuff and tried very hard to overcome

 the stuff that had happened the previous two months. 

In July Lisa came to visit later in the month and we did more stuff in one week 

than I did in the entire summer combined.  Good times.

August  brought the Dragon Boat races and we placed 2nd in one of our races.  I didn't get to participate in as many races as I would have like due to doctor's orders, but as always we had the best time.

In September we lost our beloved Kitty.  I still miss her.  Not a day goes by that I don't pull up in front of our apartment and look to see if she is there waiting for us.

In October Joe celebrated another birthday.  We also passed 48 months of waiting for our baby from China and realized we would have to pull our paperwork if Joe's job situation didn't change in the next 6 months.  I am not hopeful that we will be able to continue on with this adoption but we agreed to wait a few more months before officially pulling out.  That's a loss that I haven't really started to grieve for yet.

In November Joe and I got into enjoying riding our bikes a lot.  Lisa and I went on a girl's weekend to attend the Scrapbook Expo and we met up with some good friends.  So much fun!

M3, Kayce, my seest-er and Stacey

We spent Thanksgiving in S.F., as has become tradition

I made a bunch of banners last year and was surprised to 

find that people actually wanted to pay money for them.    You can check them out HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.  The name banners were my favorites to make.  I love working with the different themes and imagining them hanging in the child's rooms that I made them for.

December we had a wonderful Christmas in S.F. again, and thus finished out the year 2010 for us.

One of the main reasons I keep this blog going is that it is a journal of our lives every year(no matter how boring that may be).  It is nice to be able to go back and look at what we were up to throughout the year. I wouldn't have remembered half the stuff we did otherwise.

2010 was not good to us.  I have seen over and over again on FB that it was hard for other people too, and they are glad it is over.  I feel the same. Honestly, the last 2 years have been very difficult for us, but last year was probably one of the hardest I have ever had personally. 

 I hope that this year brings better things for us.  I pray every day that this year will bring a job for Joe. It's the only thing I wish for anymore.  

I hope this year brings health and happiness to everyone out there reading.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Twenty-two years ago I went to a New Year's Eve party and met a boy. Little did I know that 22 years later we would still be together. Happy Anniversary Joe! It's been quite a ride.

I saw this on another blog and loved it. It is perfect for the New Year. Better yet, it is a free download so you can download it and take it to Kinko's and have them blow it up to frame. I'm thinking of doing just that.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve!

Bored

I'm on my 8th day of vacation and it's kind of a double edged sword for me.  One the one hand, I LOVE getting to sleep in as long as I want and not having to go to work, but on the other I don't do well without some kind of structure. Yesterday I didn't get out of my pajamas all day.  I read on my Kindle, messed around on the computer and watched a movie. It was raining though, so that made it easier to just lay around.  I feel so lazy though.  Today it's sunny and we are going to go for a bike ride later.  I tend to become a hermit when I have so many days off.  I need to get out of the house. I have a couple of gift cards burning a hole in my pocket too so that's on the agenda today as well. I actually wouldn't have minded working a couple of days this week, since the time we have off is unpaid.

 I just realized I spent a whole paragraph complaining about my vacation.  Sorry.  You can tell me to shut up now.  :)  I'm just really bored.

You know how when you are on vacation you lose track of time?  Well I can't remember what day it is, let alone the date.  All day yesterday I thought it was Thursday.  For some reason I thought Thursday was New Year's Eve. All day long I kept asking Joe "What day is today?"  and "Is it New Year's Eve"?  All.  Day.  Long.  It was driving him crazy.  So then today I woke up and said "Today is Thursday.  *now* it's New Year's Eve".  He was so exasperated that he replied "NO.  Today is NOT New Year's Eve.  How about you stop asking me  and I will tell you when it is finally here." Of course now I have been asking him every half an hour as a joke.  Heh.

Speaking of New Year's Eve, I have been thinking about if I am going to make any New Year's resolutions.  In the past I have made them, but of course never kept them.  Weight loss is at the top of my list but I just don't know if I can find the motivation to do it.  Here's the thing:  I have lost weight many times throughout my lifetime. I am actually very good at losing weight.  I always use Weight watchers and it works very well for me.  5 years ago I lost 50 pounds.  Just last spring I lost 30(I was also walking 5 miles a day then).  The problem is, I always gain the weight back(although I haven't gained back *all* of the weight from last Spring.  But a good portion of it).  So my question for anyone out there that has lost a significant amount of weight is How do you keep it off?  How do you keep the motivation to stay on the healthy eating track and not gain the weight back?  It's amazing how quickly weight that took you a year to lose creeps back on.


The other goal I have tried for the last 3 years and not fulfilled was Project 365.   Every year I start out gung ho, snapping a picture religiously every day and then by the end of January I fizzle out.  Not because I get bored, but because I  live such a boring life that I literally run out of things to photograph.  There are only so many pictures of the sunset or my dog that one can take pictures of.
 
Do you make New Year's resolutions?  What are some of them?

We don't have any plans for New Year's.  In fact, this will be the first year in 10 years that we aren't baby sitting.  You would think we would have made some kind of grand plans or something but we're just planning on staying home and trying to stay awake long enough to watch the ball drop in NY. New Year's Eve is the 22nd anniversary of the day we met so we might throw a bottle of champagne in there, but that's about it.

Anyone have any fun plans for New Year's Eve?  I'd love to hear about them.

Last days of our trip

The day after Christmas we headed over to Crissy Field to let the dogs and children burn off some energy.  It was beautiful, as usual.  Even the weather cooperated.  Sunny, slight breeze with temps in the low 60's. Perfect for a walk on the beach.

                                  Cameron threw a stick(log?) for Finn, hoping to wear him out.

                                                     I made him get in the picture.

                                 You can't beat the unobstructed views of the bridge from there.

We brought a picnic lunch which we ate on the retaining wall.  This was minutes before someone's crazed Weimaraner came by and stole Cameron's sandwich right out of his hand.  It was pretty funny actually.

We were supposed to leave on Monday, but we decided to stay one more day. Lisa and I went and got pedicures.  This is a treat for me. I never get to have them.  I think the last time I did was in the summer, with Lisa as well.

          

                                                    Lisa got me this mug for Christmas.
                                                            It says
                                                            If by "happy"
                                                            you mean trapped
                                                            with no means of escape.......?
                                                            then yes, I'm happy.

                                                              Haha!  It's a joke!!

Joe got Lisa this Edward figurine for Christmas because he knows how much she loves him.  We decided to have a birthday cake since we can't spend our birthdays together and I stuck Edward in the middle.  Cameron wanted to light him on fire but he settled for placing the candles on the cake around him.

                   Every picture Joe took one or the other of us wasn't happy with how we looked.

                   Finally Lisa said "Let's bend down behind the table so you can't see our bodies."
                                              Ummmm.....yeah, that looks much better.

                                                      Gracie got a hold of the camera.

 This is the hair do Cameron came out of the shower with.  He kept calling it his "Fox Hawk" (instead of "faux hawk").  No idea where he came up with that.

Christmas Day

Finally the big day was here!  The kids didn't even get us up at an ungodly hour this year.  That in itself was a good present.

One of my presents to Lisa.  She guessed what it was  :)

 Cameron wondering why he got an X-box game when he didn't have an X-box.  Lisa told him she meant to buy a Wii game and accidentally bought that instead.  He was bummed.

Until he opened the actual X-box itself.  Then he wasn't bummed anymore.

           Finn got a stuffed squirrel.  (SQUIRREL!!!) That's what we yell any time we see the squirrel in his mouth.  Well, what's left of it anyway.  He pretty much tore it shreds within minutes of opening it.

Joe had to corral Gizmo.  She was kind of pissed that Finn got a squirrel and she didn't

                                                                   Piles of presents!

                Uncle Kenny trying out the Dance game.  I tried it today.  I really am a bad dancer.  I have            
               video to prove it.  You won't be seeing it.  You may, however, be seeing my sister's video on            
                    Facebook later.

                                 Grace putting jewels in my hair with the hair bedazzler I got her.

Later we played a mean game of "Life".  I lost.

                                                               An E-bay gift card for Joe.

And a new I-Pod

I got lots of stuff that I asked for that I  needed.  

New dish towels, a warm throw for our couch, some p.j.'s and slippers.  

My favorite present was my sister's Kindle.  She got a new one and she gave me her original one, with the skin, case, and booklight as well.  I love it!  I plan on putting it to good use on our drive home.  We were supposed to come home today(Monday) but decided to stay an extra day.  We will leave first thing tomorrow morning, and Lisa and family will head to Vegas for New Years.