Reflecting on "the Worst Year of my Life"

Christmas came and went. New Years came and went. Here I sit, reflecting on one of the worst years of my life. Dan went from full time youth ministry to being a full time musician. This means he plays 150 concerts a year and none of them are local. He's on the road about 2 weeks of every month. In addition to my life partner being gone half of the time, my parents separated, we moved twice, my job and circle of friends shifted, gained a few pounds, lost half of our income, gave away our dog.

But I'm not the type to throw a pity-party.

There were many highlights including Dan's brothers wedding in Rhode Island, Dan & I explored Boston for a couple days, I got to tour with Dan to California twice, we were in France in February for a very cool camp and got to spend some time in Germany. Here are some more highlights....

I ran another half marathon, this time with my best friend in the whole world! (The last half marathon I ran was in 2005!)

We live in a RAD loft in downtown Tacoma. Our house is being paid for and lived in by some pretty cool girls who go to University of Puget Sound. We love it here in the loft and want to stay FOREVER. In case you were wondering, "FOREVER" is not a word that Dan and I are comfortable with. We've moved about 6 times in the last 7 years. Anyway, we LOVE the loft.

My husbands' band is killin it! They've been touring consistently for a year and playing with some huge bands and lovin every minute of it. We're so pumped for 2011 to see where this will go.

We celebrated 7 years of marriage in August. SEVEN YEARS! I can't believe it. We continue to enrich each others lives every day. I never regret marrying so young. I couldn't have picked a better partner to navigate through the craziness of life with. Anyway, our anniversary was pretty low key. We went to Stanley and Seaforts, our favorite restaurant, and then cracked open our new (to us) season 4 of The O.C.! This season was aired while we were in France so we'd never seen any of it. We started at the beginning of 2010 with seasons 1, 2, and 3 and our anniversary seemed like the perfect time to FINALLY start season 4. It was amazing, by the way. If you've never seen The O.C. it's not too late to start.

With all this traveling and uncertainty, we made the decision to re-home our best little dog-friend, Bisou. She was so unhappy when we moved out of our house; she missed Dan, she missed her yard, she drove me CrAzY! Our new building doesn't allow dogs anyway. So now she's running around on a acreage with a few other dog friends, having the time of her life. So, it sucks for us but it's much better for her. It's friends-of-a-friend so we check up on her lots! We miss her and think of her often but know that we are not ideal parents at this crazy time in our lives.

Another highlight is that I took a 30-day Vegan challenge in the month of September and haven't turned back. I feel good and even though it's hard sometimes - especially when we travel - I feel like I'm doing something good for my body and good for animals. A book I have says that by eating vegan you're saving the lives of 60 animals a year. I think that's something to be proud of. It's also opened up a new world of cooking for me! I love trying new things and Dan, although he's not made the choice to be vegan and probably never will, has been VERY supportive and LOVES the food I make.

I'm probably forgetting many many things but that's all for now. Looking forward to booking som weddings and taking more photos and hopefully some more travels, finances pending. Thanks to everyone for your love and support this year! Let's have some fun in twenty-one-one!