2009 - It's a wrap!

The New Year is well under way now and I'm slowly getting the house back into a routine, too. We enjoyed a terrific Christmas this year - no germs and no stress but lots of time with family and making happy memories. One way I've decided to stream-line the holidays is to mostly eliminate sending cards. I still do a few, but most of our family/friends are now online, so I've taken to writing this end-of-the-year wrap-up instead. If you haven't been following along through the year, here's your chance to see what we've been up to the last 12 months. (I highlighted past posts in purple.) 2009 was a year full of some pretty big surprises, but also many, many blessings and reasons to be thankful.
We're believing 2010 will be filled to overflowing with blessings from the Lord and wish the same for you! Jeremiah 29:11

Cheers!

Jen

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The early months of 2009 were pretty routine....2-day preschool for the kids and the usual stay-at-home-mom duties for me. Bob's job in the cabinet business remained stable despite the economic downturn, a major thanksgiving for us. In February, Grammy and Grandpa visited us for my 35th birthday and a few weeks later we worked on planting for our first garden. Other winter activities included playing in the snow, starting to enjoy board games, a visit to the Insectarium and various playdates with friends from school.

For Easter, we traveled to the mountains and got to meet our new cousin Caleb for the first time. The kids had an art show at school and we began to think about our summer activities. For the kids' 4th birthday in May, we held their first friend-party. The theme was "How to Build a Rainbow" and 12 preschoolers enjoyed everything to do with colors and crafts. It was a big success, albeit an exhausting one!

In early spring, I had made the decision to go ahead with thyroid surgery to have a growth removed from the left lobe. (2 biopsies had been done, but the possibility of cancer couldn't be eliminated, therefore my endocrinologist recommended surgery so that a definite diagnosis could be reached.) I waited until the kids were finished with school and then at the end of May I had the operation here at our local hospital. Everything went smoothly and I recuperated well. One of the year's "big surprises" came a week later when the biopsy showed that the growth was, indeed, malignant. That took us down another unfamiliar and unexpected path to the radio-oncologist's office. We were blessed with a very professional and experienced doctor who made the whole journey through radiation seem like a breeze. In July I took a dose of radioactive iodine which burned out the remaining thyroid tissue, along with any cancerous tissue that might have been missed during surgery. I recovered well from that treatment, too, and got back on my feet amazingly fast. To date, my checkup shows no sign of cancer and I've not had any side effects from the radiation nor the thyroid meds I now take. Other than a small scar on my neck, I wouldn't even know that anything had taken place. This happy news is one of the biggest blessings we've experienced this year.

The rest of the summer went quickly, but we managed to pack alot of activity into those few remaining weeks. We made 2 shore trips and a 5-day visit to the mountains for the County Fair and time spent with the grandparents and cousins. Each of the kids had a special Mommy/Daddy and me outing, too. L had a fancy lunch at a tea room, J went to the Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs and M and Daddy went to Eagles training camp for a day. Other summer activities included a day at the PA Live Steamers, our annual trip to the strawberry patch, baseball games at the Reading Phils and swimming at Aunt Janet's pool.

Before we knew it, September had arrived and it was back to the school routine for us all. The kids started 3-day preschool with a lot of excitement. Their class is very small as compared with last year, but they love their teacher and are enjoying the additional Spanish class they have. Between Mrs. Eakins and Dora, they should be fluent soon! Other fall activities involved the kids as ring bearers and flower girl in Daddy's cousin's wedding, getting a new swingset for the backyard, carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating and visiting the Philly zoo several times.

Fall wrapped up and Christmas preparations began in earnest. This year the kids were much more aware of the Santa situation, so we had to be careful with our words. The shelf elf visited again and kept them on their toes. Their wish lists were also more involved and specific, so I had a lot more work to do on Ebay and Amazon to make sure Santa got things just right. L focused on dolls and dress-up wishes; J was once again all about bugs and creepy-crawlies; M had an art & sports focus this year. Santa, of course, was more than generous and the evidence of his visit is still filling every nook and crany. January will be about finding proper places for all the new goodies we have and deciding what needs to move on to the rummage sale pile.

All in all, it was a very good year and definitely one we won't forget soon! When you have a minute, drop us a line and fill us in on your 2009 highlights. We'd love to hear from you!