2012 – A Year in Review

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I am past due for an obligatory 2012 review and 2013 resolutions post!

I went through Facebook pictures last night for a quick review of 2012 and I’ve decided it’s been another very good year!  2011 was very hard to beat (wedding, Maui, move to a new town, new job, etc), but I think 2012 definitely one-upped it!

2012 Highlights
 I started the year off by completing my 3rd Half Marathon in January  (Aramco Houston 1/2 Marathon).  This was Tyler’s first half marathon.  We crossed the finish line with our hands clasped together and held victoriously over our heads!This was also my Mom and my Aunt Terri’s first half marathon.  I am so proud of all of them and excited they joined me for this one!  It’s so much more fun to run with / compete against family! 😉

Look at that awesome goal-setting and goal-busting couple!
I was baptized at Fellowship Baptist Church in Nederland, where we are now members.  I had never been baptized and as an adult I struggled with making this symbolic commitment, but this was my year!  I was finally in a place in my life where I felt I could turn this corner, and I am very happy with my decision.

Thank you, Pastor Frank Hodges, for baptizing me in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ!
We paid off my car, my College Access Loan (student loan), and Tyler’s Perkins Loan (student loan), totaling about $43,000 in debt — GONE FOREVER!  Thank you, Dave Ramsey!

This is my super-nerdy debt payoff thermometer for our car loan!

We went zip-lining in Denham Springs, Louisiana, with my Mamo (grandma), my cousins, and my Aunt Sue!  My Mamo is a super-cool grandma and loves to do crazy things with me.  So far, we have gotten tattoos together, gone sky-diving together, and now zip-lined together!  Next item on the list for 2013 (and my 30 Before 30 list) – hot air balloon ride!

One super-cool Mamo, right there!
We celebrated 5 weddings with very close friends and family:
Alex and Justin (my step-sister) in Cleveland, TX
Nikki and Josh (my step-sister) in Centerville, TX
Lauren and Chris (my friend – I got to be a bridesmaid!) in Richardson, TX
Traci and John Paul (my friend) in Rockport, TX
Emily and Justin (Tyler’s friend – Tyler was an usher!) in Nederland, T

Lauren was a BEAUTIFUL bride and this was probably one of the most fun wedding receptions I’ve ever been to!
We celebrated 3 births:
Caleb Thomas (my best friend, Katie’s, 2nd child)

Jayden Matthew (my cousin, Amanda’s, 2nd child)
Adrienne Lanell (my step-sister, Alex’s, 3rd child)

Holding my best friend’s little boy, Caleb, the day after he was born.  He is such a happy baby!

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary in style!  We stayed at The Caroline House in Montgomery, TX, which is the same B&B where we spent our wedding night.  I highly recommend this place to anyone looking to check out the wine trails in the region just NW of Houston.  Ms. Mary is the most amazing inn-keeper and always makes our stay special!  The Bluebonnet Wine Trail was a great way for us to enjoy a weekend relaxing, making new friends out of complete strangers, and spending some romantic alone time dreaming of the many years of blissful marriage ahead of us!  We then attended church that Sunday at the very church we made those everlasting vows and got to visit with the pastor that officiated our wedding.

Here we are in front of our wedding church in Plantersville, TX on our 1 year anniversary!

We joined our community in welcoming a recently disabled marine home from deployment.  This event was a huge shift for me in my view on living in a small town.  I was so moved by the number of people that came out to support this veteran and his homecoming.  It made me proud to see a community come together to show respect and gratitude to this individual and his family for their service to our country and for their sacrifices.  I think this is the very moment that I fell in love with my new town!  You rock, Nederland, TX!

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I went on an exciting week-long trip with my Aunt Terri and my great-Aunt Kaye to Panama City Beach, FL.  You may have seen in my previous post that I described the women in my family as a “collective hot mess.”  This trip was no exception!  We had one hell of a good time, though! 🙂

Craaaaazy women having too much fun in Florida!

My husband gave me braces!  One of the bonuses of being a dentists wife is getting to be his guinea pig and get free dental work.  This could be a blessing OR a curse, depending on how you view “going to the dentist.”  I, personally, never had a problem with the dentist and now that I’m married to one, I take the free work readily!  My teeth weren’t bad, but there were a few teeth that had gone rogue and were starting to get way out of line.  They were more an annoyance to me than anything anyone else would ever notice.  Also, being married to a dentist, in my opinion, means I should be a model of his good work!  He wanted to practice some orthodontics and I was an eager volunteer!  By the time the braces come off, I will have only had to wear them 9 or 10 months and I will have a removable retainer to ensure they never get out of line again!

Brace face!

 AND OF COURSE, the biggest highlight of the year for my husband and I both was finding out that we were pregnant!  We are big time “planners” so we knew we wanted to start trying to get pregnant in July.  I also knew that, on average, it can take couples a year to get pregnant, so I tried going into this whole “trying” phase with an open mind and some patience.  Thankfully, after just 2 months, we nailed it!  These results are not typical, so other couples should not get discouraged if it does not happen as quickly for them.  I will regurgitate some of the advise I got from my doctor, though, because it likely helped us. 

I am so far from being an expert that it’s not even funny, but I wanted to share a few things I learned from the doc, from friends who have spent a lot of time trying, and from reading articles on the topic:

  1. Get off your birth control at least 3 months before you plan to start trying so that your cycle can get back to normal and you can start tracking them (I used the Period Tracker app).  I got off mine in March to start trying in July.
  2. Start taking prenatal vitamins as soon as you get off the birth control so that you can start building up those vitamin stores for the baby,
  3. Get to a healthy weight – it can be harder to conceive when you’re over or under weight.
  4. De-STRESS your life!  Nothing throws your body off more than STRESS!  I thankfully had just left a very stressful work environment when we started trying, otherwise, that may have delayed things quite a bit.  Stress does all kinds of crazy things to your hormones and will not make your body a happy baby-making environment!  Besides, who needs the wrinkles??  Wooosaaahhhh!
  5. DO NOT make it into WORK!  Taking something fun like sex and making it into work sucks all the joy out of the experience and can lead to unnecessary stress.  See #4.  Find anything you need to just keep it light, relaxed, and to foster the illusion that it’s still “spontaneous!”
 2012 – Not all rainbows…

No year is without it’s disappointments.  While we were blessed this year in so many ways, we did endure heartache, stress, and fear at varying times throughout the year.  It’s a good thing we joined a good church this year, because I’ve needed to do a LOT of praying!
 Sadly, this year we had to lay my Uncle Marty to rest.  My Meme had to bury her son, and my Mom had to bury her brother.  I was not particularly close to my Uncle Marty.  Most of my life, he lived up north, but in the years prior to his death, he was living in Louisiana, up the road from my Meme.  I didn’t see him often enough to foster a close relationship by that time, but I loved him just the same.  He had his special sense of humor and it was a joy to see his sideways smile.  He fought his own demons throughout his life and I’d say in the end he won, because though he may have left us too soon, he left this earth knowing exactly where he was going.  There’s comfort in knowing that he’s in the arms of his maker, in heaven.  
Rest in Peace, Uncle Marty!  I know they have fishin’ and four-wheelers in heaven!

2012 Take Away

I like to think that every year we get a little bit wiser.  Sometimes we learn more trivial facts, sometimes we gain more experience, and sometimes we get to know and understand ourselves just a little bit better.  I think the latter is the most beneficial of what I will take away from 2012.  
I learned this year that I have chosen to look through rose colored glasses.  This is not naivety, because I could easily remove those glasses at any time and I’m completely aware that they are there.  This is a conscious decision to remain positive, hopeful, and maybe just a little too trusting at times.  It may open me up to disappointments and a little extra heartache, but my hope is that my attitude will give others the opportunity to live up to my positive expectations for them and that it might even rub off on a few people who have forgotten that happiness is a CHOICE.

 

Life is flux.  Bad times fall on us all.  The only difference is how we react, which is based solely on our attitudes.  Learn to appreciate those precious fleeting moments in life when you are completely filled with joy, and push on through the bad times, knowing that there is good ahead, because there is ALWAYS good ahead…
 
I choose to look for the good in life and in others.  I choose to see the positive side.  I choose to be happy.  
 
Bring it on, 2013. 
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