In just a few days we'll be entering a new year once again! I love doing a yearly wrap up blog. I have the worst long term memory so even remembering what happened a few months ago is difficult for me but thanks to the wonder of social media, I was able to scroll back and look over the year 2018. As I was doing this, I kept smiling as I was reminded of things and have come to the conclusion that this really was a great year for our family! Sure we had some tough times, but the good definitely outweighed the bad this year and we made a lot of great memories, and also made some pretty big changes!
2018 began with Cassidy halfway through Grade 1, Aviannah halfway through her first year of Pre-K, I was teaching piano and doing daycare for Levi, Luca and Theda and John was working at Woodstyles. We kind of kicked off 2018 with a bang by announcing that we were working towards another adoption. I'm not going into detail here, since I have gone into great detail in previous blog posts, but that has not panned out thus far. I would say that has definitely been the biggest disappointment of the year in some ways, and also a blessing in disguise in others. John and I have both learned so much through this experience and I truly feel we have become better parents because of it. Also, our marriage has gotten much stronger. I went through so many highs and lows during this process and John was a rock throughout it all. We drew strength from the Lord and from each other and we are better because of it. We've always had to work hard on our marriage, but something has clicked this year and we are finding it easier and easier. I'll touch more on that later, but this adoption experience definitely drew us closer together. Currently, we are waiting on our social worker to let us know what the next steps are, but the journey is far from over and we are still very much hoping that we can add to our family someday.
Other then that, we had a pretty low key winter and spring. Our nephews stayed with us for a week in January and we had a blast with them. Cassidy played soccer again in the spring and did great! She improves every year. This coming year Avi wants to play too so we'll see how that goes! Both girls also did swimming lessons again. Unfortunately neither of them passed, so we'll try again next year.
In March both girls celebrated birthdays. Aviannah turned 4 and Cassidy turned 7. We had fun celebrating with families all month long. Cassidy had a friends party where they baked and decorated cakes, it was so fun! Our rule is that on their 5th birthday they get to start having a friends party so this next year we'll be doing two of those!
Our 2018 summer goes down as one of my favorite summers ever, not because we did anything extra special but we just made the most of every day and had blast! I had my last day with Levi at the end of June. I had been doing daycare for him for 3 and a half years, so it was definitely hard to say goodbye! We still get to see him fairly often and Aviannah prays for him every single night but we sure do miss having him around! I had Luca and Theda full time over the summer, and I made a plan that every day we would try to get out and do something fun and we definitely did! We were blessed with excellent weather and very few rainy days. I think the highlight for all of us was doing a park hop around Warman. Of course I had to pick the hottest day and we were all so sweaty and hot by the end of it but our goal was to hit up every park in Warman and we did all of them but one! I set a timer at each park, they would run and play and when I'd yell "Time's up!" they would all run back to the van, we'd guzzle water and drive off to the next park. It was seriously so much fun! We also went to my parents for a pool party a couple times, visited the spray park, went frog catching, ate ice cream and had lots of picnics. We also tried something new, geocaching! It was so much fun! We had one especially eventful day when we went geocaching down some back roads and I ended up getting us stuck in the ditch. My father in law came to our rescue, but while we waited the kids kept saying "I think we're going to die out here," LOL!
I also took two weeks of holidays during the summer. We drove out to Sylvan Lake for a family reunion with my mom's extended family. We rented a house and all stayed together and spent the day at the beach and played games and had such a great time together. On the way home, John and I took a detour through Calgary and took the girls to Calaway Park. This was my favorite day of the summer by far. It started out scorching hot. The girls were the perfect age for the rides and we spent all morning riding as many as we could. We applied and reapplied sunscreeen, drank our weight in water and kept going. Halfway through the afternoon, as we were just exiting a ride, out of nowhere the wind picked up, dark clouds rolled in and it started pouring rain. As we ran for shelter, the rain turned into hail. Large hail. We made it underneath this tiny awning and we huddled there with about 30 other people as it hailed and hailed and hailed. It just kept coming and we were shivering and barely managing to avoid being hit. Kids were screaming and crying, and adults had their phones out to take videos. I have never seen hail that bad before. I told John it felt like we were in the apocalypse! By the time it finished, the ground was covered and it looked like we had just gotten a dump of snow. We made a dash for the nearest store in the midst of it, which happened to be a candy store. We bought the girls some candy while we waited out the rest of it. Most everybody left but we had some rides we hadn't done yet and were hopeful they would reopen. We wandered around while we waited and we did still get to do a few more rides before closing. It was a very memorable experience! Our girls were such troopers! They didn't cry or get scared, they just took everything in stride. The last time we did a fun family outing in Calgary (the zoo) we got caught in a massive thunderstorm. Apparently we have bad luck in Calgary! It makes for a fun memory!
Other highlights of the summer- Leesa and I went to a Rider game in Regina (they lost, boo), we went camping as a family at Pike Lake, we went to see a friend's band play at Ribfest, the girls went to a day camp at a local seniors home and how could I forget, Cassidy went to her first overnight camp at Redberry Bible Camp! She went for one night and two days and had the best time. This summer she's going to try going for a whole week!
Fall brought quite a few big changes for our family. Cassidy started Grade 2 and Aviannah started her second year of Pre-K. Luca and Theda moved on from my daycare so we had to say goodbye again. Even though I only had them for a year, they are dearly missed and we all grew to love them greatly. I took on two new girls in September, Sloane and Elizabeth. They were both 15 months when they started, only 2 days apart. It was quite an adjustment but everyone has settled in nicely and I am loving the change! It had been awhile since I'd had babies around so it's been a big change. They have become such good little friends and I can't quit squeezing and kissing them! The biggest change of the year, for me, was making the decision to quit teaching piano. It was something I agonized about for a long time, but I'm happy to report that it was the best decision I could've made. I have loved all my students, and I miss them, but it had freed up two evenings a week and I can't even explain how life changing that has been, not just for me but for all of us. John and I are both thriving because of it, both personally and as a couple. We've been able to make so much more time for each other and that's been huge for our marriage. I mentioned above that our marriage has never been better, and I know that me being able to free up these evenings has been a huge part of that. As a mother, I'm also able to spend the evenings with my girls. I've started teaching Cassidy piano, and I get to do her reading with her each night and help put them to bed. It's just been awesome and I have no regrets.
This is getting to be a long post, this is why I need to blog more I guess! But I can't not talk about the H.I.G.H.L.I.G.H.T of the year which was, hands down, going to England! Thanks to John's very generous family for taking our girls, we spent 10 days on the trip of a lifetime! We had just the best time. It was strangely relaxing, even though we were go go go every single day. I kept saying to John it was so weird that I wasn't tired, even though we were so busy, and I realized that my mental energy was completely freed up because I didn't have to think about a single other person other then myself. As a mom, I don't ever get that luxury and man, it was nice to experience that for a short while. Of course I was glad to return home to my girls, and I sure felt the mom guilt hard for leaving them on the days leading up to the trip, but while I was there I was able to not worry about them or think about them (too much) and it was a just a much needed break. What's surprised me is how much we both miss England. I always go through a trip withdrawl when we get back from somewhere. John is not a traveler and if it wasn't for me, he probably wouldn't go anywhere so it more surprised me that he really misses it! Every time we mention England, we both get a little sad and feel the ache. We have both decided that we definitely want to go back to Europe one day. England did not satisfy my desire to see Europe, it intensified it! It was magical and perfect and beautiful and I'm so so so grateful we got to go. We really didn't think it would be an option at first, but when our adoption was put on hold, we looked at each other and said "We're going!" It was really good for me to having something good like that come out of something painful.
In November we celebrated our 8th anniversary and we just spent a wonderful Christmas with both our families. Both Leesa and Eric came home and we had lots of good family time. I don't usually set goals for the new year or have a word or make resolutions other then to keep seeking the Lord, seeking His will for my life and being intentional about going deeper in my relationship with Him. I love the feeling of a fresh start. I'm excited to see what 2019 has in store. I am reminded once again how good God is, and I'm thankful for His ongoing faithfulness to me, even though I don't deserve it.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and here's to 2019!
