2011 Year in Review

Two things before we get started:

1. This post is SUPER long.
2. I used a combination of the new Facebook Timeline and my Flickr stream to pull all these events together.

January - I began 2011 thinking that I would do another 365 project.

I only went about 60 days into that project before getting so far behind that I, much to my dismay, gave it up.

January is my birthday month. I turned 37.

January was also our family's first foray into Basketball with both kids playing on Upward League teams. Julia did quite well for her first time on the court, Galen pretty much just liked to run around and play. Typical. January was also known as the month Julia did not go to school. Nashville experienced some atypical winter weather, aka snow in amounts more than one inch, which pretty much shut the city down for days and days and days.

Tweet/FB status, "And there was weeping and gnashing, the fifth day."

The end of January brought the long awaited and much anticipated BLISSDOM!! Five of the best days of my life. I was crazy busy working as a volunteer for the conference and working the One2One Network booth and I barely slept but every bit was worth it to be with my precious friends, hear fabulous speakers and oh yeah, there was that flashmob.

February, the shortest yet most difficult month for me. Too much gray, and the snowpocolypse of 2011 continued which meant more snow days and grumpy kids home from school. And, I gave up Coke for Lent (see also: my brain must be addled).

Tweet/FB update from Feb 9, "Middle of the day & Publix is packed. I want scream, "but I actually do NEED milk!" #snowpocolypse #nashville"

Basketball continued through the end of the month. Julia showed some mad skillz and Galen still liked to run around and play. We had an "old skool" blogger reunion where several of us from "back in the day" ::cough2005cough:: got together for lunch and reminiscing and catching-up.

In March I accompanied David to Boaz, AL as his barbershop quartet competed in the District semi-finals which won them the right to compete in the international competition in Kansas City in July. We had a lovely weekend (Nana & Pop kept the kids) and I got up after about 2 hours sleep on the Sunday morning of "spring forward" to Daylight Saving Time to get this photo.

FB update, "Galen was trying to remember the name of character in a book we read last night. As he described the character, I offered, "You mean, Mia?" To which he replied, totally deadpan, "Let's call her Anthony."

April brought more and more Spring weather (and some severe weather that had us taking cover!) and the S.A.D. fog finally lifted. We got to reconnect with old friends who were in town for the weekend and meet their adorable son.

Easter arrived and I could drink Coke again. Sweet nectar of fizziness.

Tweet/FB update, "I love having a musically talented child! I was treated to piano music while I made dinner and post-dinner music is trumpet solos!"

May marked the one year anniversary of the severe flooding in Nashville. That was rather surreal. And then Nashville was hit with a 13 year swarm of Cicadas. Also surreal, and loud.

Tweet/FB update, "What? I can't hear you! Did you say the cicadas are really loud?? #thecicadasareREALLYloud"

Galen and I (and the rest of the Otter Creek Kindergarten) were treated to an insider's view of the Nashville Zoo.

Galen "graduated" from Kindergarten. (sob)

The cicadas continued.

On May 26, Julia turned 11. Also on that day, in the wee hours of the morning, she and I boarded a Gray Line bus to head to Charleston, NC with the Nashville Children's Choir - Touring Choir. We had four, fun filled days of sightseeing and singing.

You know what Charleston doesn't have? Cicadas.

In June, school finally ended after all snow days were made up and we settled in for a summer of all four us being at home together. All day. Every. Day. Julia started summer swim team again and Galen just liked to jump in and get out and jump in and get out. Typical.

We celebrated David's birthday with a homemade meal of Hungarian Beef Stew and German Chocolate cupcakes.

Tweet/FB status, "I made one of those meals tonight that makes you feel like your kitchen will never recover from chaos."

I got blueberry happy and made some lemon blueberry tarts.

My second favorite blogging conference, Type-A Parent Conference, was moved to June this year. I headed to Asheville, NC with Jana & Alli and we had a fabulous time, as usual.

The cicadas finally went away.

July was a head-spinning kind of month. David spent the first week of it in Kansas City competing in the international Barbershop Harmony Society's annual contest. His quartet placed 8th in the world! I was unable to accompany him this year but I sat in rapt attention at my laptop watching the live screen cast.

Fourth of July was spent with grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousins, oh my!

Summer swim team finished with a splash. (punny)

David came home for a few days and then headed back out again with Julia to go to a summer camp in Pennsylvania - she was a camper, he was a counselor. That left me and Galen at home together for 10 days straight. And we managed to survive! We registered Galen for first grade (how is that possible?) and watched so much Phineas & Ferb that:

FB update, "There has been too much Phineas & Ferb in our house lately. I swear I just heard a sound that I thought was Perry the Platypus."

Galen and I flew to Florida with some unexpected delays, "Long story short: storms, circling, more circling, low fuel, diverted to Orlando, waiting to gas up. Also, HUNGRY." We finally arrived in Tampa where Granny and Pa had been patiently waiting and the pizza parlor had been patiently holding off on cooking our order until we could pick-it up...at 10 PM. I think that's the latest I've ever eaten dinner.

David and Julia arrived in Tampa the next day after driving from Pennsylvania. See also: we were all very tired.

July ended with David and I celebrating our sweet sixteenth wedding anniversary.

We started August off with more travel. We arrived home from Florida and David headed to Arizona for business. He came back and I headed to San Diego for BlogHer. BlogHer was simply amazing. I loved being in San Diego. I got to ride in a pedicab! I loved getting to reconnect with blogging friends. I got to meet several bloggers that I admire. I got to hang out by a lovely pool and sip cocktails. I got to attend some fabulous parties and dance the night away.

I returned to Nashville from BlogHer and was immediately thrown into back-to-school mode. Both kids started at new schools this year and there was a lot of prep to be ready.

Tweet/FB update of the month, "I've decided that if you really want to know how I feel about anything at all, you must talk to me on Skype b/c I am emoticon dependent."

And then once school started, it was kind of downhill from there, or at least it was quiet!

September 1st - I restarted my 365 project (and so far, I'm keeping up with it!)

Granny and Pa came to visit. Galen started playing flag football. And since Julia is at a school with a high school football team, Friday night football games were on our calendar.

FB update, "Taking your very mobile 6-year-old to a football game dressed in the school colors means you frequently "lose" him among a sea of red shirts. Next time? Bright yellow."

I took my most favorite photo ever.

David and I treated Julia to a Taylor Swift concert. (It helped that NEEDTOBREATHE was the opener.) And I became a bona fide Mac user.

Probably the most significant thing about September was that after almost a year and a half of home church with one other couple in our neighborhood, we "joined" (for lack of a better word) a home church group in Nashville called Reunion. It has been a good thing.

October was (and pretty much always is) another whirlwind month. Every weekend was full of something. I attended the Food Bloggers Forum here in Nashville. That was a tasty weekend! We took our annual trek out to Gentry's Farm for autumnal outing fun and photo opps. David and I attended a beautiful wedding. I got to see Mat Kearney in concert. Our car hit 100k miles. I played mad scientist/baker and created a Franken Cookie. We carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating.

Tweet/FB update, "I bought a handmade broom today. And I'm downright giddy about it."

Yep, that was a pretty typical October.

We started November right off the bat with Galen's birthday on the 2nd, barely recovered from the Halloween sugar coma.

I helped host a 3 Musketeers "Like-Up" party in Nashville with some of my other blogging compadres.

It was a month of baking things I've never made before. It started with a gingerbread assignment for Blissfully Domestic and then there was a pumpkin pie for Galen's class Thanksgiving party and then I made two chocolate pies (from my grandmother's/mom's recipe) for teachers at Galen's school. I had fun flexing my baking muscles on all these recipes!

Tweet/FB update, "On GMan's Christmas Wish List - Guitar, Drum Pads, Speaker & Microphone. Heaven help us, we're raising an entertainer."

For Thanksgiving, we loaded up the Caddy (aka land yacht) and headed East/Northeast to my aunt and uncle's house in Fairfax, VA for a first ever family reunion on my mother's side. It was a lot of fun hanging out with aunts, uncles and cousins that we rarely get to see.

We did a little bit of sight seeing; took the kids to the National Zoo. I got a free cupcake from Georgetown Cupcakes for knowing the "secret" cupcake of the day (revealed on Twitter each day). Went to the see the new Muppet movie with all the cousins. And I got to reconnect over coffee with my good friend, Scottie for a couple hours one morning.

And here is December. An unusually quite month for us this year. Since David and I both work from home, there were no obligatory office parties to attend. We're in lull between sports (football ended in October and basketball will start up late December, early January) and there were only about 2 1/2 weeks of school before winter break.

December 1st brought out the much anticipated "Advent/Countdown to Christmas" wreath. It's a wreath made up of circular boxes numbered 1-24. Each year I fill the boxes with either a slip of paper or some candy. The slips of paper have things written on them like, "watch a Christmas movie on a school day" or "drive around and look at Christmas lights & eat pizza in the car" or "make snowman donuts", etc. The two they look forward to the most are "eat dessert first" which they interpret as "dessert for breakfast" and a scavenger hunt which always results in a gift at the end of the hunt (this year they each received $10 Sweet CeCe's gift cards).

Tweet/FB update, "Annual viewing Home Alone brings out the pint-sized vigilante in Galen. #watchyourstep"

The Nashville Children's Choir was part of the annual "Christmas at Belmont" concert which is recorded and broadcast locally and nationally on PBS. It was great fun for the grandparents in Nashville and Florida to see their granddaughter singing on television.

One of the best things about the month was the whirlwind trip I took to Dallas to see my friend Katie get married. Sarah was there, too as the wedding photographer and we all had a blast being together again!

We spent Christmas at home this year and then joined up with the rest of the Carden's in the afternoon for more revelry, food and gifts. This year heralded the first ever White Elephant/Dirty Santa gift exchange among the adults (and a couple of the kids). It was tremendous fun. Lots of laughter and memories made. I think we've hit upon a new tradition.

If you've stayed with me to end of this super long post, thank you. Even if you just skimmed it to see just how long it was. (Don't worry, I do the same thing.) This was a good exercise for me, looking back over the year and remembering.

Tomorrow is the beginning of 2012. As much as I'd like to resolve to be here (on the blog) more, I know better than to say that. Thanks coming by and reading whenever I have the inspiration to write. We'll see what 2012 brings!

Happy New Year!