2014 in Review

It’s that time again! Time to reflect on the past year, where we’ve come from and where we’ve been. This has truly been a life-changing year for our family (although it seems at this stage in our lives that every year is life-changing!), with a cross-country move, new job, and new home. I can hardly believe we’ve only been in Vermont for 8 months.

Way back in January, we enjoyed a little “Southern” snow day, which was huge for us then, although now we know what a “real” snow is like. At that time, we were just happy Daddy got to stay home to play in it with us!

In February, I got to see Leah dance in her class, which was usually closed to parents. She’s becoming quite a little dancer and it’s starting to become a great hobby for her.

In March we took our first trip to Vermont in view of a call to pastor a church there. Brett had been talking to the elders there for several months and we were so excited about the opportunity, although terrified of the idea of moving so far away. As soon as we visited, we were fairly certain that was where God wanted us to be. It wasn’t official for a few more weeks, but we knew things were about to change. So we went back to the Seminary where it all started and took one more family picture in the gazebo.

April was Easter and some of our last few weeks in NC. Leah finished up her first year at Classical Conversations, where she learned an incredible amount of information, met lots of new friends, and really thrived as a student.

 

In May we took two different family vacations: one to visit my mom & dad in the Outer Banks, and then later to Georgia to visit my friend Elizabeth and her family. We made some great memories we won’t soon forget and were able to spend some great quality time with our friends and family.

Later that month was the big move. Everything we own was packed into the UHaul and 2 cars. We traveled through 7 states in 2 days—our kids were incredible travelers! And at 9:00 the night of May 10th, we arrived at our new home to a warm welcome by about 20 people from our new church family.

In June we began settling into our new life in Vermont. It quickly became home. We visited the Ben & Jerry’s Factory as a family. We went Strawberry Picking with some new friends from church and had a Strawberry Festival.

In July we saw a 4th of July parade, and we celebrated Andrew’s 4th birthday. We had a simple party with just our family and he was so happy all day long!

In August we experienced our first Fair & Field Days, which was so much fun! The kids developed a love for farm animals, rode rides for the first time, tasted maple creemees and just had a great time together.

Then Leah turned 6 and had a huge Frozen-themed birthday party with all her new friends from church. There were about 6 girls there and she had the best time. She and Andrew also got to fly in a small private plane with one of our church members that day.

In September we started a new adventure with Classical Conversations in Vermont. Leah started 1st grade and Andrew pre-k. They both get to participate in a class this year and they have made so many new friends already! Leah also started her 3rd year of dance, this year with a new teacher in a new studio.

In October we experienced apple picking for the first time as the weather got colder. We loved it and had yummy apple goodies for weeks!  Brett & I also enjoyed a weekend getaway to the New England Pastor’s Retreat in Stowe, Vermont. It was a great FREE treat with great speakers and lots of fun surprises.

 

Later in October we picked up hiking as a new hobby for our family. We really enjoyed the short hike we took together and plan to do it again soon! We also enjoyed a visit from my Mom & Dad, and took them to the Shelburne Museum and apple picking. We also celebrated Abigail’s 2nd birthday while they were here. The kids enjoyed trunk and trick-or-treating on Halloween.

 

November brought our first Vermont snow. We had a pretty big storm the 3rd week of November and were stuck inside a few days, then went out to enjoy all the fun snow has to offer!

And of course December was filled with Christmas activities of all sorts.

Looking back to January, I think we had no idea we’d be where we are now, but I would say we accomplished all we had planned and then some. Looking forward, I have no idea what 2015 will bring but we are excited to see what God has in store! The years fly so quickly at this stage in our lives, although the days may seem long. We will continue to soak up each minute we can.

Christmas Morning 2014

 

Christmas morning as a parent is so much different than it is as a kid, and it seems like this year we got the whole experience. We got the kids gifts that required some assembly, so Christmas morning required more than one late night putting things together so we wouldn’t have to do it with an excited kid waiting. Thinking about their reactions when they saw their new toys made all the secrets and hiding of gifts worth it. We really enjoyed shopping for their gifts, wrapping them while watching Christmas movies, making sure to hide them in just the right way so Santa would still be mysterious, and then deciding the perfect way to arrange all the gifts under the tree.

 

Since the girls’ room is right off the living room, it proved a little more challenging to surprise them in the morning. We warned them the night before that they were not allowed to come out of their room until we came to get them—not even to go to the bathroom. They are really pretty good about obeying that rule. Andrew’s room is a little farther down the hall, so we weren’t sure how to get them all to come out at the same time. We let him wait right at the corner, then called for them to come out (after I’d gone in to get Abigail out of her crib). They seemed amazed that Santa had really come—although we’d been talking about it for days.

 

Abigail seemed to know right away that this was her rocking horse and wasted no time getting on him. Her other big gifts were a baby doll with a carrier (she loves to put babies in her high chair to “feed” them, so now the babies have their own chair), and some foam blocks. Love the expression I caught when she opened the blocks!

 

 

Leah’s big gift was the Barbie Dreamhouse. It’s all she talked about since she saw it on TV months ago. It is the only thing she asked Santa for. This thing is HUGE—about as tall as she is, has 3 floors, 2 elevators (one for fashion), a working toilet & hair dryer, and tons of seating. The house is nicer than our own house! :-) Of course Abigail loves throwing all the little pieces all over the place but mostly she loves pushing the button to flush the potty. Leah hasn’t played with it as much as we thought, but then we put it downstairs and haven’t really spent much time down there since then. Her other big gift was a “Journey Girl” doll, which is a life-like looking doll that you can buy clothes and accessories for. She also got a backpack in which to carry the doll to sleepovers or wherever. She was really surprised and not expecting this, although she mentioned a few weeks ago that a friend of hers’ had one like it. She has carried it around non-stop since Christmas morning.

Andrew got a table on which to put the wooden train he already has. It also came with a few more track pieces and accessories. Unfortunately it’s not really big enough to build some of the tracks he likes to build, but he still enjoys that it’s off the ground and plays with it a lot. We also found an inexpensive electric train that goes by itself on a track which was set up around the table. He now likes to let it ride around off the track and run into people.He also asked for Lightning McQueen, although we weren’t really sure what he meant. I think he wanted one he could ride in, but he got a small one for the bath and another smaller matchbox-type one. We also got him a loop race track that propels cars to race them, but then Aunt Karen got him another one that hangs on the wall and shoots the cars out at ridiculously fast speeds so they can go around a huge 3 foot loop. That one was by far the biggest hit and all 3 kids love playing with that!

    

    

 

We thought we might get a white Christmas seeing as how we’re in Vermont now, but it was actually sunny and about 45 degrees and has been all week. That little blob of snow in the middle of the big patch of grass in this picture? That’s our igloo. Melted into a puddle. It was nice to have sun, but it would have been fun to try out our new snow tubes on Christmas day.

The rest of the day was spent just playing together with new stuff, munching for lunch and enjoying a nice ham dinner. We played 2 new games, we played Barbies and car races, we watched a parade and some Christmas movies on TV, and enjoyed each other’s company.

        

 

We got a video of their first reaction to what Santa brought. They were in awe.

 

And some more videos of the unwrapping!