Bidding a fond farewell to 2010

2010 was an amazing year for us, not too much on the bad front and saw plenty on the good front.

January saw a new year and a new semester. The classes for the semester were Human Anatomy & Physiology II w/lab, Statistics and Microbiology. 3 classes but 12 credits. It also saw a still sick from H1N1 me...this started back in October, come on already. Little did I know I was in for a few more months of extremely poor health.

In February hubby and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary and hubby's 41st birthday! We also had a family photo shoot. I was extremely pleased with the pics! It was the first time hubby and I had professional pics of the two of us. And princess had some adorable shots!

Throughout the year we traveled like maniacs...In March on my spring break we visited two very dear friends! One in Kansas and the other in Minnesota. We stopped back home to see hubby/daddy on our way from Kansas to Minnesota. We also sold our second home in the month of March what an extreme financial blessing that was. We were able to pay off the loan on our car with the leftover.

In April I moved further into my 30s by turning 31. I'm definitely enjoying being thirty something much more than I enjoyed my 20s.

In May my health was reaching a peak of miserableness. I was still sick from H1N1 complications. I was taking meds for this that and the other and then meds for side effects caused by those meds. I ended up going to the ER for a suspected appendicitis...turns out it was just a massively enlarged liver with lots of dark spots. Hubby and I started Thrive! for my mom's Mother's Day present. After the trip to the ER I was removed from all meds to see what that did for me. May also brought the end of the semester with a solid 3.0. I wasn't upset with the 3.0 seeing as I missed at least half of all classes due to being sick. Also made the decision to not take any classes over summer semester to focus on getting healthy and to spend more time with my family!

In June due to Thrive! and lots of prayer a CT of my liver showed that it was back to normal size and perfectly perfect. This was excellent news, but mildly frustrating because we had put out so much money and still are paying on some of those tests, etc that were required for no answer. The CT confirmed what we were already realizing, I was finally getting better. Hubby and I decided I would stay off of all meds, including birth control. Princess and I were spending lots of time enjoying the pool. I also spent a lot of time running her to all her activities: tball, fun in the sun, get your motor running, swim lessons, and creative dramatics camp. I think that's all of them...should have kept track better:) We also paid a visit to Minnesota to visit friends again. Princess caught her first fish and I went on my first kayak ride. Love kayaking! Can't wait to live near enough to bother with getting my own! Oh I also started teaching basic skill computer classes at the library where I work as a very part time assisstant librarian.

In July Princess celebrated her 5th birthday! It so doesn't seem like it's been 5 years already.

In August we got the ball rolling on a very important task and a task that I can hopefully share with all my online peps before too many more months have past. Hubby and I decided I would take a complete online class semester for the fall so princess and I could take an amazing 6 week adventure. We began the adventure this month. We headed out from Iowa, stayed over night in St Louis. Made our way to Paducah KY where we met some online friends:) Then down to my hometown of Jasper GA. Hubby joined us in GA after about a week. We spent 4 or so days visiting family and friends. Then hubby and I headed to Lexington KY for a business conference. We really enjoyed our drive/ride through the Appalachain Mtns. We stayed over night in Pigeon Forge Tn. Hubby is still talking about the brick oven pizza we ate while there:)

This adventure rolled us into September. Hubby and I attended the work conference with hubby's brother and wife. We met tons of great people. We heard lots of great speakers. Got to see LeeAnn Womack perform live and perform one of my all time favorite songs, I hope you dance. Hubby left with bil/sil headed home. I returned to GA for the princess and to continue our journey. We stopped in NC multiple times to visit great friends who we hadn't seen in way too long! I finally got to go to the Outerbanks and loved it! Even when we were getting towed off the beach, lol. From the Outerbanks we headed to Virginia Beach. My aunt and uncle were traveling at that time also and our paths crossed at this point! It was nice to see them and let princess see an RV campground. We stayed on the beach for a couple of days, had to catch up on homework and we just needed the break from traveling. We were at the same hotel the Blue Angels were staying...Princess had a blast watching them fly from our balcony and running into them in the lobby. She called them the Blue Fairies:) LOL From VA we headed on up the coast with stops here and there for whatever caught our eye. We did drive through tours of Princeton, Harvard and Yale. We saw the castle in Ipswich MA. We made our way up the coast all the way into Maine. We LOVED the NH coast! We visited some more friends in Vermont! We stayed here a couple of days! Loved the time we spent with friends! We visited Ben & Jerry's home base, and Cabot's creamery! Yum yum yum at both places and very interesting! Once we pointed the car west though we were ready to be home! We met up with one more friend in upstate NY after visiting Niagara Falls and then made haste getting home! We missed hubby/daddy and wanted our own beds. We cut the 6 week adventure short by a couple of days so it wasn't quite 6 weeks....but it was close to 8000 miles.

October was loads of fun with Halloween. Princess was little Miss Red, White & Blue in honor of a friend of ours who'd just returned from Afghanastan and another who just left for the same place. We went to the pumpkin farm this month with bil, sil and niece. We had a blast! Princess loves spending time with her older cousin and we just adore our niece! Princess was able to start Girl Scouts as a daisy and Awanas as a Spark upon our return home.

November brought Thanksgiving. We have so very much to be thankful for! Our princess recently asked Jesus to live in her heart! We are thrilled and amazed to know that she made this decision! We are really very extremely blessed! I cooked my second ever turkey and my first ever to be eaten by people outside of my house. It was yummy! We made a fancy dressing that was delish fresh! However, the recipe gets low points and will probably not be repeated because it was absolutely yucky once it wasn't fresh and was not reheatable...the dogs enjoyed the leftovers!

We thought we were finished traveling for the year until December came along. Hubby's work shut down on 12/17 not to reopen until 1/3, and my mom got offered lots of overtime during the Christmas to New Years break. We also found out bil, sil and niece would be out of town on Christmas so we needed to have Christmas with hubby's family early. I'm pretty neurotic about princess waking up in her own bed on Christmas morning. But we reached a compromise...she always wakes up in her bed the same day we celebrate Christmas with hubby's family. So Santa agreed to come early and coincide with the altered time. We had a very blessed Christmas season! Wonderful time with family, talking about the true reason for Christmas with princess, praying together as a family, and of course wonderful presents representing our love for one another and our thankfulness for all Christ did for us. Like I said Santa came early, the 19th. This allowed us to head to GA on the 23rd. We were going to leave on the 22nd but princess had a Christmas present swap the afternoon of the 22nd, and a Girl Scout lock in at the local bowling alley that night as well. So we picked her up way too early on the 23rd and headed south. We stayed overnight near Huntsville AL and made it to Nana's house on the 24th. We were snowed in for Christmas...yes GA had a white christmas this year:) But were able to celebrate with most of my mom's family on the 26th at Papaw's. This was my first Christmas there since my Granny past...if helped a lot that it wasn't the normal Christmas gathering...I still missed her presence like crazy! We had a fun time though! We headed back home a couple days later. This was the calmest trip to GA we've had....snowed in = not able to visit lots of people. We were able to have Pueb with some good friends! And of course Nana and princess got tons of time together! Was great getting to see my sissy also! We were home a couple days before NYE and rang in the New Year with friends and games!

That doesn't even cover our year but it's my attempt at an abbreviated headline time summary:)