NYE

It's 7:25pm on NYE and I'm sitting at the dining room table. Harper's passed out, Nick's watching Evan Almighty and I'm reflecting on the year that's gone by. It feels like it was just yesterday I was at the Vines' house ringing in 2009. The year has been whirlwind.

Reflecting on the bad…

I really consider myself lucky. Yes, it was hard losing some friendships, and it was hard watching some of my friends go through some really really hard times, especially when there wasn’t anything I could do. I had to move away from my Washington friends and I had to find another home for Vince, our dog. I dealt with some bad luck in regards to the Navy and Nick missing the birth of Harper, but in the grand scheme of things, I really feel like I was one of the lucky ones this year.

Now to move on to the good:

Joline found out she was pregnant at the beginning of the year and subsequently produced Harper’s bff: D3.

Danielle and David found out they were expecting a little girl!! Yay!

John and Aubrey got married and Harper and I were able to make it to the wedding.

Jaimee and Andrew got married and Nick and I were able to go to the reception.

We moved from Washington to Wisconsin with no big issues.

My friendships with people grew stronger!

For the first time in over 6 years, Nick and I were able to spend all the major holidays from October on, together, without worry that he’d be called into work or be out to sea..etc.

Nick was able to get an early out!!!!! =)

Nick’s not deployable in the reserves for at least 2 years!

I had Harper and Nick was able to meet her 6.5 short weeks later.

I've watched Harper grow over the past 7months. :) She has such the little personality. Perfect mixture of Nick and myself.

I can finally see an end in sight with school--graduation is a year away!

Nick was accepted to UWM, too!

I was able to make 4 trips to St. Louis this year. :)

I'm able to stay at home with Harper and I'm realizing I'm not that bad of a cook. :)

There are so many more good things that happened but I have mommy brain and can't think.

Reasons to look forward to 2010:

1. Freakin' graduation

2. Look at my list below--I have lots of goals to accomplish!

3. My baby is going to be 1 in five months!

4. My insurance rates are going to go down--Nick's going to be 25! :)

5. Closer to family.

6. Get to see the St. Louis Cardinal's play.

7. We will hopefully be buying a house soon!

**More to come!!***

I'm going to close this blog...and go enjoy the last of the decade. I hope that everyone has a safe and happy 2010.

Goals for 2010

I made a list of goals I'd like to achieve in 2010. I'll probably come back and add more to this as I think of. I think this will help me hold myself accountable and will help me complete these goals as 2010 goes by.

1. Lose 25lbs

2. Run/walk a 5k.

3. Join some kind of exercise class/play group/moms group so that Harper and I can make friends.

4. Buy a house

5. Graduate

6. Decide what I want to do when I "grow up"

7. Decide on grad school--determine where I want to go.

8. Buy new living room furniture.

9. Start saving for my super fancy formal dining room.

10. Paint all the rooms after #4 is accomplished. Make Harper’s room "hers"

11. Get a park membership.

12. Try to get a weekend away with Nick

13. Be done Christmas shopping by December 10, 2010.

14. Plan our 5 year anniversary/honeymoon trip for 2011

15. Start a couple more savings accounts.

16. Walk/run 2 or 3 times a week with Harper

17. Get a membership to the County Park.

18. Digi-scrap or hand scrap Harper's first year of life.

19. Get rid of all clothes I haven't worn in over a year.

20. Continue to go the library--read 15 books for fun this year. (aiming very low due to heavy course load @ school)

21. 4.0 for school

22. Send a 'thinking of you' card to an unexpecting friend each month

23. Set a routine/schedule and stick to it.

24. Update my blog a couple times a month.

25. Finish baby blankets I started before I was even pregnant with Harper.

26. learn to crochet

27. Crochet a baby blanket.

28. Stop using plastic/paper bags at grocery store...use my eco-friendly reusable bags.

29. Start paying on student loans.

30. If #4 is accomplished, plant flowers and landscape the house.

31. Cook one new meal every 2 weeks

32. Volunteer somewhere

33. Grow my hair out to at least

34. Do one thing for myself a month

35. Encourage and support Nick's half marathon/marathon dreams.

36. Work on being a better wife.

37. Plan a surprise for Nick and don't tell him about it.

38. Send a couple of care packages to our friends stationed overseas.

39. Take Harper to story time at least once a month.

40. Register to vote in Wisconsin.

41. Get my tattoo fixed

42. Go to a cardinals game in Milwaukee

43. Go to a Cardinals game in St. Louis

44. Take Harper to St. Louis to visit at least 3 times.

45. Go to Chicago for the weekend.

46. If Green Bay plays in St. Louis, buy Nick tickets to see them play.

47. Actually use my calendar and planner!

48. Find a hobby for Nick and I do together.

49. Take a class for fun.

Blogging

I am going to try to blog more often. I have friends that blog all the time and I really enjoy reading their blogs. With friends all over the country ((thank you military)), it's really a good way to stay in touch. I had a blog a while ago, but I didn't keep up with it, so I decide to start over, thus creating this new blog. I'll try to fill it with pictures of Harper, our life in Wisconsin, my opinions and views on life but I'm afraid it will be mostly rambles.

To update the world on our life:

Nick got out of the USN on Oct 1. Now he is a reservist (I'll refer to that as "play navy" in future blogs) and is working for the family business. I've been accepted to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and found out (much to my surprise) that I will probably be graduating Dec 2010 as opposed to late 2011 like I had expected. I am stoked.

Harper is 6 months old now. She's cutting her first teeth...doctor says by Christmas she'll have 2 teeth... I'm pretty sure she'll have one within the next week or so as I can feel the edge of one coming out. She crawled to me last night (as I was holding the target ad--I'm convinced that's why!) but it was only a crawl. She prefers the military scoot/roll/crawl mixture.

One of my goals for 2010 is to blog regularly, so hopefully this will become a regular occurrence. I've got a lot to say but for now I need to clean up, make lunch and relax before harper wakes up.