2009: The Good, the Bad, and the In Between

 009 was a big year for us. It started off with:

-Closing on our first house! We bought our first house, this small 3 bedroom ranch in a great area.
No more than 2 miles from Patrick's office, no more than 2 miles from our Church & Aidan's school. On top of it all, they reported that housing values increased 12.8% in our town this past year.

-Making changes to the house,  including painting, getting new carpet for the bedrooms, replacing the roof.

- Aidan turned 5, had an awesome birthday party at Playground World, and graduated preschool. He played Soccer Basics, conquered the fire poles at parks, and started kindergarten. He lost 3 teeth this year. He was Woody for Halloween. He made it on Santa's nice list & got what he wanted for Christmas.

- Brennan turned 2, transitioned from crib to big boy bed, stopped napping (God, help me!), got many haircuts (remember the one my husband got in trouble for?), was Buzz Lightyear for Halloween. He also made it to Santa's nice list. Not so great, he had a visit to the emergency room.

-Patrick turned 29, gained a lot of handyman experience improving our house, completed another year of  grad school, gained job security & a better position in his job, got a Blackberry from work (you know this is a highlight for you, Pat!), got a new MAC laptop, & did an awesome jobplanning things for my birthday. 

-Me: I turned 29, reached my goal weight yet again, fell in love with the 30-day shred, got more organized than I've ever been in our homes, found a white wine I love (Barefoot Pinot Grigio), volunteered for 40 Days for Life, did some other volunteer work for our church, and developed some new friendships. I also became a great-aunt.

We traveled to Michigan many times,  Milwaukee, North Carolina,Gatlinburg, and for the first time in our married life, did not travel to South Carolina this year.
We also hosted Thanksgiving for the first time, a big cookout, and my sibling-side Midwest get-together.

We became  godparents, again, welcoming Luciano into this world.

We finally made our legal will.
We improved our life insurance policies.
We completed Financial Peace University.

Many good things, many blessings during 2009.

Trials & tribulations, too, like barely seeing each other while Pat is in grad school, our car a/c breaking while traveling back from TN, in 90+ degree weather.
Our fridge needing to be repaired, probably replaced. The need for a 2nd car growing more intense. job uncertainty for a while.

Combine the good & the bad, and together we hope we've grown stronger. More faithful.
New Year's always feels like a night of offering, of hope.

I wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope 2010 is the start of a wonderful decade for us all!