Year in Review

The last year has been crazy. To say the least. I have been thinking back on it all today and am just blown away by everything we have accomplished in the last twelve months or so. Thinking like this really makes me with I would keep up on this blog better. Time flies, and I feel that this is a good way of keeping up with all of the fun little tidbits that I'm sure to forget even just a few years from now.

Since I have been doing so poorly, I have decided to do a 'Year in Review' post... starting with the above picture from January of 2011, which I think illustrates how insane this year has been rather well.
January 2011 was a whole lot of nothing. PEACE. We were still in Wisconsin and hadn't even thought about moving. I was doing a bit of wedding planning here and there, but nothing major. Our schedule was pretty easy: Alan worked at Jockey M-F, Penny and I would nanny Elle on Tuesdays and Thursdays and nanny Seamus and Kieran on Mondays and Wednesdays. Fridays we had play dates with our mommy and me friends and weekends were just for us as a family. Complete bliss, thinking back on it <3





February 2011 - Alan and I started contemplating a move. We loved the security of his job at Jockey, but he (and we) were not going anywhere. He was making enough to cover all of our bills and then some, but we didn't usually have much to put into savings at the end of the month. Any savings we did have was spent on trips to see our family and our upcoming wedding in April.

So we had an idea... Alan had always planned to eventually move back to California, so why not now? We only have one child, who is still pretty young and easy to up-root at this point, we do not have a house to worry about selling and we're young and optimistic enough. So we pool together our extra cash and fly out to visit Alan's family in Orange County just to feel it out, one last time before we finalize our decision.

Decision was made. We were moving.

We hadn't set a date. We wanted to keep things relaxed. We knew that we definitely wanted one last Wisconsin summer... so we tentatively decided on August/September.

March 2011 was a rough month. Wedding planning was in full swing, being just a month away and we made the difficult decision to re-home our much loved dog, Bailey. I had gotten Bailey, as a puppy when I was only 14... so after 10 years, I was heart broken to have to do it. Bailey and Penny did not get along very well (can you feel the tension in their expressions above?).

Penny LOVED Bailey, but a little too much. She was very good about giving her 'nice touches'... and by this, I mean that she would give her nice pats, a lot of hugs and a lot of kisses... none of this Bailey cared for. It was getting to the point that Penny couldn't even walk in Bailey's direction without Bailey starting to snarl at her, and Bailey snapped at Penny a few times, once drawing a tiny bit of blood from Penny's hand. We were having to gate Bailey off in our tiny kitchen all by herself, which just wasn't fair to her.

I did a lot of research and came across a cocker spaniel rescue, that was based out of a nearby town. I was able to surrender her... but I must admit that it all went a little faster than I was hoping. She was placed with a foster family for a few short weeks before being adopted by what sounds like a wonderful older couple, who are newly retired and have plenty of time and energy to give Bailey the love and attention that she needed and deserved. As well as the whole experience turned out, my only regret is that I now have no contact with them. I have no idea who they are and they do not know me. I would die for an update <3

April 2011 - WEDDING! That's all there was, right? Planning, planning, planning and making, making, making. Craziness. I did pretty much everything on my own... from making my own centerpieces (even the table runners), arranging the DJ, hall and caterer, made my own invitations and programs, and so on. I was nuts. But it all turned out 100 times better than we had imagined. The ceremony was beautiful and our reception was a blast. It seriously could not have gone any better.




May 2011 was very rough. Just days after our wedding, I became ill. I had been having heart burn issues since becoming pregnant with Penelope, but had always dismissed it as reflux. Even my doctor didn't seem concerned about it since I only averaged one or two episodes a month - she just told me everyone had to find what antacid concoction and diet worked for them. But nothing seemed to work for me.

Two days after the wedding, Alan and I were on our "mini moon" in Wisconsin Dells when I was hit with the worst attack I had had up until that point. It lasted 24 hours. For the next few weeks, I would have an attack about every other day and it would last most of the day. It would start as heart burn symptoms, but would get to be very painful and my body would force me to vomit everything out that I had in me. Finally, while on a trip to Florida, I had an attack that was so severe, I ended up in the emergency room.

When we got back to Wisconsin, I met with my doctor and she referred me to a specialist. The specialist scheduled me for an endoscope. He thought I had ulcers and possibly stomach cancer. The endoscope showed nothing but some mild irritation. So I was referred to another specialist. This whole process took about three weeks, and in between appointments, I was having to go into the emergency room for even more severe attacks. They put me on a Gerd diet (I was basically only able to eat rice and sweet potatoes and only drink water for a month), I had lost a lot of weight and I was given prescriptions for Vicodin and percolate... which did little for pain.

This whole time I had suspected that it could be my gallbladder, since my family had a history of bad gallbladder... but the doctors had dismissed it. After a month of specialists and treatment that wasn't doing anything for my pain and my attacks were getting worse and worse (imagine being in labor for an entire month. Seriously. I had given birth to Penelope without pain medications... and I would have taken that 10 times over what I went through with this pain). I ended up having an attack that was so bad that I went into the emergency room and demanded that they do an ultrasound of my gallbladder. It only took two seconds for the US tech to see that there was a serious problem. My gallbladder was badly infected and was trying to pass abnormally large stones. GREAT!

I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. Had I not gone in and demanded for them to look at it, my gallbladder would have passed the stone, which would have shredded my digestive track. I would have bled to death in as little as 48 hours. Even the surgery proved to be more of a challenge than they had anticipated. Before being sedated, the surgeon assured me that this was a fairly common surgery and that he had preformed so many thousands of them a year and that he would be in and out in less than an hour.... it took him over two hours, the infection was so bad. Typically this surgery is an in-patient procedure, but I ended up having to stay over night for observation... for this, I was glad. I was actually able to lay still and get a bit of sleep despite the pain from the surgery... no way that would have happened at home with Penelope.
Recovery went well. It took a few weeks to heal, but I was fortunate not to have any complications.




June 2011 was a much happier month. Summer had begun and we were able to spend a lot of time with family. Penny and I went to Gleason, WI. and were able to spend a few weeks with my family there. My baby sister, Mikala came home with us for the summer to help with Penny while we prepared for our move.
There was a lot of work to be done selling things, packing boxes and preparing the house for an estate sale... but we were still able to have a lot of fun. Trips to the beach and neighborhood pools and parks, camping, trips to the zoo, family reunions, brewers games, summer festivals and playing with friends.



July 2011 was catch up time. My sister and her family came to visit from Arizona, so we were able to get all of my siblings and our kids together for the first time since before Penelope was born. We payed a lot of visits to friends and family while we could and made a point to attend as any parties and family functions as possible.
Our estate sale went very well and we sold all the major things that we needed to. Many many boxes were donated to Goodwill.



August 2011 was moving month. Last minute packing and cleaning and my family was a HUGE help. They came during our last weekend in Milwaukee to help out. We were able to have a birthday party for Penelope with them and all of our mommy and me friends. My dad was awesome and drove the huge moving van to our house for us and backed in our driveway. My sister, Michelle watched Penny while my mom did cleaning, my sister, Mikala and I carried boxes from the house to the back of the van and my dad loaded everything up. Alan was at work.

Penelope and I left a week before Alan - her and I flew out to California and Alan drove out with the moving van the following weekend. A few weeks later, Alan and his mom flew back out to check on the house and drove back with Alan's car.




September 2011 - our baby girl turned two! Much celebrating was done. We had had a big party for her with family and friends before moving. The morning of her birthday we continued what is sure to be a yearly tradition, meeting Alan's dad, "Pappa John" at Disneyland. Pappa John got us the best present ever - annual passports! Penelope got to ride the Finding Nemo ride for her first time. At the time, Findind Nemo was her FAVORITE! So this was a huge hit. Later that afternoon, we met up with Alan brother, his wife and Alan's mom at Lake Mission Viejo for a picnic (we had done the same last year too). We had cupcakes and Penny got to open her presents and go swimming.


October 2011 was pretty uneventful, for the most part. We spent most of the month waiting for our new nephew to arrive - Alan's brother, Steven and his wife had a handsome son, Hunter David Primm and we celebrated Penelope's 3rd Halloween. Penelope is old enough to really get into holidays now and we really had a blast decorating and going to Halloween themed parties and events. By request, we dressed her up as a tortoise - after her new best friend, Roger, Alan's mom's desert tortoise.



November 2011 was our 'fun month'. We spent some time at Alan's uncle, Peter's house in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving... and besides that, I think we spent the rest of the month at Disneyland. I'm pretty sure of it, actually.



December 2011 was full of Christmas cheer. Many more visits to Disneyland. With Alan still out of work, it was wonderful to have such a fun place to go to essentially for free.
Christmas went pretty well. I must say that I was a little mopey, not being around my family and trying to get into the spirit without snow outside proved to be difficult. But was still had a wonderful time. Alan's uncle, Peter came to stay with us and we had a lovely day Christmas Day with all of Alan's family at Alan's brother's in-laws home in Mission Viejo.



January 2012 was our last month with Alan. He didn't die... he got a job. So spent a lot of time going to the zoo, local parks and nature trails, museums and, of course, Disneyland.

Alan had been without a job since we moved in August, so this was much needed! He is now the Multi Media Specialist for Carbine Studios, a computer game company in Aliso Viejo.




....and now we're too the present month, February 2012. Much like last year, this month is rather uneventful... except that we finally chose to announce that we will be expecting another baby! We found out on Alan's birthday, back in November, but had decided to wait to tell everyone until we were able to announce Alan's new job as well.... which took much longer than we hoped (we had been waiting to find out if he had the job since early December!) We had a nice dinner with Alan's entire family as well as some family friends. No one had a clue that we were expecting - when Alan stood to toast and thank everyone for coming, he spilled the beans and everyone was very excited! We love that we were able to tell everyone all at once instead of having to decide who tell first. We told my family over video chat after dinner - and with that came more excitement :)



... so, yeah... lots to be proud of this past year! A BIG move, our wedding, pulling through being seriously ill, and now a baby <3

Here's hoping this next year is just as wonderful (but, please, less chaotic!)
:)