2009 was a busy year as I continued my second year teaching second grade, we bought a new home, and Gil began working with a new client out of state.
I took my first trip to New York City to visit a friend in April. The most exciting part of our year was moving from our apartment in Northville into our first home! The house definitely kept us a lot busier than I had anticipated with all the little things like buying furniture, unpacking, and settling in. The bigger problems of home ownership kept us busy too, like redoing our entire basement only a couple of weeks after moving in! But that's all behind us now. Life lessons, right?
We got in as much family time as possible with our busy schedules. Things were a lot easier when we all lived in the same city! This year was so fun watching my nieces get bigger and bigger. Gil and I celebrated our first anniversary together (well, really almost 8 years but we had to start our count over when we got married) :). I visited Gil in Seattle during one of his trips for work. We celebrated the holidays with family in Grand Rapids. It was hard to get a good picture with both babies. :) And of course, we got to see our favorite pup in GR. We finished off the year with a ski trip to Shanty Creek up North. What will 2010 bring? Can't wait to find out!
We did! It was great to see family and spend time in Grand Rapids, as always. I have some great pictures to post, but of course I did not bring the cord for the camera so that will have to wait.
Gil and I headed out to the mall to return some clothes and we were afraid of the crowds and lines but we lucked out and the mall was pretty quiet for a couple of days after Christmas!
After a ski trip up North this week (I think we're heading to Shanty Creek instead of Boyne now) we'll be back to our side of the state. I'm hoping to get a lot done around the house before I head back to school.
Check back in later this week for cute pictures of the babies! :)
We have hardwood floors throughout most of our house. I like to keep them clean. I vacuum all the time and then once in a while, I steam the floors. That's been working for the most part. Except, how do you clean under the king sized bed?? I just can't reach that strip in the middle underneath the bed and the dust bunnies are taunting me. Feel free to share any tricks that I don't know!!
Today we celebrated Kara turning one! She was such a cutie and cheerful the whole time! She got a lot of presents...including 3 dolls. I didn't get the doll memo and we got her a cute bathtub book/puppet set from Write Impressions in Royal Oak. I love that store. It's great for little gifts! Grandpa B got her a huge train set, which I bet she'll love. Kiki spent a lot of the party like this: but she woke up later and was super cute and running all over the place.
It was a fun family day. Can't wait til Christmas!
Here's a useful way to spend your Christmas money...help a classroom of second graders get a leveled library! Check out my proposal below at donorschoose.org:
starts now! Our Polar Express party day went well at school and now I can finally relax for the next two weeks! My second graders looked so cute in their little pajamas. I love pj day. I can't wait to sleep in for the next two weeks. I love my job!
was the temperature that I had when I got home from work on Friday. It was also the approximate number of body aches that I had. On the up side, it also happens to be the number of nice things that Gil has done for me since I got the worst cold ever. Among that list was making me pancakes in the shape of smiley faces, trekking off to the store after a LONG day of work to buy me Lemon Propel water and pudding, and having a fire lit and the Christmas tree lit up for me when I finally crawled out of bed on Saturday morning after going to bed at 5 pm the night before. I love my husband!
So glad we finally have this thing going! Now I just wish we had the 14 inches of snow that Grand Rapids got. Sounds crazy, I know, but I sometimes miss getting those Lake Effect snowstorms!
