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| angel at "Mary, Queen of the Universe shrine" |
2011 started out a little rough for
me. In January, my grandfather
died. I attended his funeral on a
bitterly cold day in Pennsylvania. I
came home from that trip and found out a good friend’s husband who had been
suffering from cancer was quickly losing his battle. I attended his funeral in early
February. Then in March, I was shocked
by the news of another friend’s husband’s untimely death, and attended a third funeral
in as many months. I was terrified of
what the rest of the year might hold……
Thankfully, things got better after
that. April brought the beauty and hope
of Easter, my birthday, and a wonderful retreat with my husband and our “Teams
of our Lady” friends. In May, the children had their annual testing
and did well. Our middle daughter made her
First Holy Communion. We finished up our
school year, and Tim found out his full time job in youth ministry was
ending. June was full of worry until Tim
was offered a new job teaching middle school religion. Then, a few weeks later my whole family came
into town to celebrate my mom’s birthday and, except for a nasty bout of
stomach flu, we had a nice visit with my sisters and brother, and their
families. We spent July moving our
youngest daughter into her sister’s bedroom, and moving our oldest daughter out
of the shared room and into her very own room for the first time in 8
years. In August, we started back to school, and this time so
did Tim, both at his teaching job and taking online courses towards a Master’s degree, a decision we came to
during our weeks of uncertainty concerning his career. September we celebrated
our oldest becoming a teenager! October
was busy, busy, busy but we did find time to go camping as a family, and Tim
and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. November was all about writing novels with
NaNoWriMo. And in December, we were
blessed to spend Christmas with extended family and lots of joy!
Other highlights include-- A day at "Mary, Queen of the Universe" shrine in Orlando, home-made butterbeer, an impromptu trip to an
old fashioned ice cream parlor, watching our all-time favorite family movie and
laughing and quoting and laughing and quoting and laughing some more, a surprising e-mail
and resulting three week visit from a box turtle, summer library visits all over town, postcrossing, Winter the Dolphin, trips to the zoo and science center, a
special meal seat of juice pouches and nachos, meteor showers, star gazing, seeing the moons of Jupiter, Cub Scouts, Little Flowers, chocolate, chocolate,chocolate, gymnastics, art class, wood carving, our oldest son’s “weekend with
daddy trip”, learning about British foods and slang terms and customs, new
blogging friends, renewing our marriage vows, making movies, sunsets at the
beach, catching fish and exotic sea creatures, math class, field trips,
Starbucks book club, saying good-bye forever to Facebook, doll house fun with Chuck,
Kia and friends, pen pal letters to Aunt Debbie, Great Expectations that left
us cynical, “go away baggie”, swash-buckling and air bending, a different Jesse
Tree snack for each day of Advent…
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