2014, what a freakin' year. A lot of change, a lot of new. It really truly was a happy year. It challenged me like never before, but it was the good kind of challenge. You know, the kind that makes you push your boundaries and find parts of yourself that maybe you've been ignoring all this time. That's what 2014 was for me: self discovery and embracing change instead of being afraid of it.
I didn't blog much this year, so this might be a bit lengthy to make up for lost posts for my own benefit. read at your leisure and discretion.
so, let's start at the very beginning, shall we? (A very good place to start)
Viv's favorites:
Grew up exponentially, is in speech therapy, diagnosed with dyspraxia of speech and is really making a lot of good progress. She became a fashionista of jewelry and accessories, is obsessed with puzzles and is really good at them, loves the beach and skeleton heads, loves stuffed animals and carries 10 of them at all times, along with 2 or 3 blankets, obsessed with watermelon, swimming, climbing and parks, ice cream, dogs and cats. Mo & her dad are her two favorite people, loves to paint and do art projects, favorite movies this year being Frozen, Winnie the Pooh, Tangled, Toy Story, Robin Hood & Minnie and Mickey Mouse (and all movies in general), She loves the color pink, playing games like Go Fish and Memory, is obsessed with oatmeal for breakfast and PBJ for lunch, wants to do EVERYTHING herself. She loves to be a mommy, takes care of her baby & bunny with so much love. Loves rocks and collects them whenever she sees them. Sang Jingle Bells constantly this Christmas and has sung "Let it Go" all year. She always requests to listen to Frozen or "Mickey Mouse" (Disney) music. Best friends are Stu, Graham, Opal and Eli, and Hazel. Silly, lover of books, a tease and so so funny.
All about Mo:
Sweet and chill as heck, a great sleeper, loves to grab things, has pinched me ever since he was born, loves to eat, chunked up quick and became the chunkiest baby ever, has the most glorious cheeks of all time, loves to suck on his stuffed bunny, loves to be swaddled, will not roll over, loves to sit up, play with toys, loves to watch his sister. His daddy is best at making him laugh, but he is definitely a mama's boy (I love it). He's a happy, sweet baby, off the charts 100% in weight, 98% in length and head circumference. stubborn with wide brown eyes and the cutest little smile in the world. He is the love of my life.
And a little year review
January
Christmas breakin' , my brother Tanner comes home from his LDS mission in Peru, and it is the last time I'll see my youngest brother McKay before he leaves to serve his LDS mission in Southern California. Sickness of the ages: Viv gets scary hives, I get a wicked ear infection and the flu takes us all out. Dale has a birthday, turns 28 like a boss.
February
The news is out!
Baby #2 is debuting in July. We potty train Viv at 22 months and she takes to it like a pro. Done! Done. Longest and coldest and bitterest worst month of my life. STIR.CRAZY. We do anything we can to survive and barely do. Practice for Taffetas starts (blog post on Tafettas TBA).
Viv becomes incredibly more cute.
March
Baby alien is a boy! Healthy and smooshy and makes me as fat as can be. Taffetas rehearsal takes over my life, Dale is out of town for most of the month. I single mom it for most of the time. Go insane.
Viv turns two and has a cute little party.
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| our gender announcement to our families |
April
Insanity reigneth.
We are stupid and take a spring break to the only warm place close to us to save our sanity. Florida! It saves our lives and we don't regret it one teensy bit.
Taffetas performances are finally here. Crazy busy rehearsal schedules, costume fittings, choreography and pictures/advertising performances.
The show is amazing-- we do great, sell out shows, raise tons of money for a local charity. Three out of four of us are pregnant, we have an incredible director and some awesome talent that made it all possible. It turns out to be one of the highlights of my life. I realize that this is something I would love to pursue someday.
May
The weather finally warms up and we spend all free time outside. We are married 5 years, Dale finishes his first year of grad school, I'm 30 weeks pregnant, still no internship, no idea where we are headed or what we are doing this summer.
We head to the East Bay just because we want to, no job, no prospects, just friends and the promise of a glorious summer. No furniture, no dishes, no money, no insurance, no doctor and only the essentials packed in our black SUV. Trek across the country in various ways and finally make it to NorCal. We have nothing, but witness so much selfless service of people outfitting our entire apartment for us with couches, dressers, beds, dishes, tables and chairs. We are incredibly grateful.
This is an insanely crazy, stressful and busy month, but honestly, as hard and crazy this month was, I was extremely happy, because 1) i was getting out of Ithaca and 2) I was finally home, around some of my best friends and in a sunny, familiar town.
June
Let the job search begin! Dale is unemployed and searches for a job. We explore, visit cool sights, have picnics, go to parks, splash pads, Baking Wednesdays are conceived (best part of my summer!), we catch up with old friends, go on dates,
CAMP MID-WEEK with some of our besties (both men unemployed at the same time = miracle) , Viv falls in love with Hazel and loves babies because of it.
Dale finally (
HALLELUJAH) gets an internship with HP down in San Jose and starts a 2-hour commute each way.
July
July is the big month. More baking. Lots of park days, picnics, drive-in movies, ice cream, pizza and walks. My sweet friends throw me a little baby shower at my favorite Mexican place and we eat ice cream and sing Backstreet Boys until late into the night. We gear up for baby to come at the end of the month and bank on him coming early. I make freezer meals, my mom comes, and we wait....and wait....and WAIT.
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| Baby shower! |
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| Def Leppard/KISS concert |
THEN on July 24,
this little dude finally makes his arrival and it is perfect.
Viv meets Mo and this video melts my heart, as do all their interactions.
we come home and become a family of four and life can't be better.
August
life is pretty blissful for a while as we just
revel in newborn bliss and try to enjoy our last few weeks with friends in our favorite town. I cuddle that boy like nobody's' business.
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| best friends Viv and Hazel |
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| Chappy girls |
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| she secretly loves him |
Another pretty insane month. We clean, pack and move a short three weeks after Mo is born. We party with friends, travel to Utah, see family,
give Mo a blessing, Dale drives our stuff back across the country to Ithaca, my mom helps me fly with the kids across the country to start our last year of MBA school.
September
We take advantage of the nice weather and being reunited with friends we didn't get to see all summer. Viv starts nursery school, We go berry picking, make pies and play with friends outside non-stop. We go on lots of adventures (Niagara Falls), have visitors, explore Cornell and take advantage of the best season ever while it lasts.
October
Leaf playing, we take family pictures and an amazing fall break trip to Kennebunkport, Maine with our 2 best couple friends (post to come with that).
We watch the SF Giants win the world series, pick pumpkins, do halloweenie stuff. Viv has a school Halloween party and dresses up as Anna from Frozen. Halloween night, we dress up in our annual family ensemble and kill it.
November
I chop my hair. Dale searches for jobs. We take a paid trip to Florida as a potential boss wines and dines us in an amazing 5-star resort on a beach. Go to an Ingrid Michaelson concert. Fall more and more in love with my roly-poly boy, travel to Connecticut to spend Thanksgiving with our East coast surrogate family.
December
We cut down our own Christmas tree, Viv gets into the terrible threenagers early, grandma comes to visit, one more semester of school is over. Dale and I go to a masquerade ball and love it, Serial Podcast takes over my life (WHO THE EFF DID IT???). We do Christmasy things like go to the Nutcracker ballet,
Skaneateles, Ugly Sweater Fondue party, Viv's nursery school sing along, and various other winter activities. I turn 26 and we build a 6-foot snowman at 10 PM. We stay in Ithaca for the holidays and enjoy Christmas break with our little family. We have a wonderful Christmas, and I host a Christmas dinner (insanity). Dale and I ring in the New Year in oversized sweats, playing Phase Ten and getting up with sick kids all night long.
WHEW! ONWARD!
2014 was a big year for us in so many ways. What I want to remember in particular this year is how much God looked after us.
As we job searched, we looked exclusively in the East Bay area in NorCal because we so badly wanted to go back there. It had been our plan to go back even before we left for school, and to us it wasn't an option to go anywhere else. As Dale searched and searched for jobs he wanted to do, nothing was working out. Nothing. One day, Dale started looking at a particular job title that hadn't really appealed to him before, but he thought maybe would be interesting (back office Private Equity). As he looked at jobs, a random call came to come have dinner with this company, a small Private Equity firm visiting from Florida. They had found his resume out of the blue (he hadn't applied for this job at all) and were interested in him. He wasn't too excited about it, and almost didn't go, but last minute decided to go for the practice. That night turned out to be a low key interview that he blew them away in. He got called in for an actual interview later and that "interview" was them trying to sell him their company. they wanted Dale to work for them, and asked what it would take to get him there- and the job wasn't back office -- it was essentially to work up to being a key player in the company. They offered to fly our family out to Florida for a few days, all expenses covered, to get a sense of the area and who they were as a company. The money offered was more than we could have hoped for, the job was something Dale didn't think would be plausible right out of school, and the opportunities and benefits presented us just seemed amazing-- too good to be true, really. This opportunity came out of nowhere, with no effort on Dale's part to find it. It fell into our laps, a wonderful dream job in a beautiful place...just not the place we wanted to be. As we prayed about it and pondered our options, it became clear to both of us that even though we didn't
want to move to Florida and spend more time so far away from family, we both knew that this is what we were supposed to do. With open hearts (and a tiny bit of a begrudging one on my part), we accepted the offer.
Florida. We are moving to Florida. Is this crazy?!? I never in a million years would have envisioned this for my life. We are happy and excited to be moving on with our lives in such a big way, but I get debilitatingly homesick for California and the West Coast often - good friends, such easy access to both our families and a city that we love. I cringe at the though of trying to find my niche in a new place AGAIN, trying to find good friends AGAIN and being the odd one out AGAIN. I should be pro at it by now, right?
But mostly, we are excited and feel very blessed that this opportunity came our way. I have a strong testimony that the Lord knows what is best for us, and we have worked really hard to put our faith in Him in making our decisions (hardest thing I've done this year by far!). Sometimes our lives don't go as planned, and I have seen that acutely during this last year. If anything though, I am comforted to know that the Lord really does know what's best for us.
Oh. And we're graduating from Cornell in 4 short months. AND we're going to Norway. In May. Without kids. With some of our best friends. I mean really, can it get better than that.
2015, tho! Let's do it!
