A Look Back at 2014

January 2, 2015

I've been a bit lazy on the blogging front lately, but I really wanted to relish in the down time we created this holiday.

Typically we are on the road from the day school lets out until we have to be home again for work. Not exactly the most relaxing of things, but you do it anyway to make everyone happy.

This Christmas we cut everyone a bit short in favor of going to Houston for a few days to have fun together and buy baby furniture.

Then we had a little New Year's party.

And didn't get out of bed for the majority of the day yesterday. I only opened my computer long enough to plug in my verse for the 2015 Siesta Scripture Memory Team on the Living Proof blog.

It's been refreshing to be so lazy, especially with the last two months as a childless couple upon us. We've gotta soak it up now before I go into dairy cow mode for the next year. Ha!

So, a look back at 2014, I of course have to scour Instagram to remember what we did a few of the months!

January


We celebrated Pop's 75th birthday by surprising him with a big ole cake during Surefire's monthly show at the Shrine. I honestly cherish the memories I have of going to see him play music my entire life, who knew that December of 2014 would be their last performance because the Shriner's in Natchez are having to sell their building.


We also saw something I haven't seen since I taught in Bastrop, and ice storm.



February


I went with a group of ladies from church to a women's event in Houston and got my first taste of Ikea.

March


Jeremy has helped with D-Now many times, but I finally got the chance to be a D-Now leader this year. Makes me definitely wish I would have had the opportunity to do so in college.


It wasn't really an event, but I just love when the weather gets pretty and the buttercups bloom. Makes for nice dog walking weather.


April


We got to hit up a Honduran restaurant in West Monroe, it was so good!


And Jeremy and I went with Pop to see an acapella group, they were good!


May

Relay for Life is always in May in my home town, and since both of my grandparents are cancer survivors Pop always walks. I wish I could have been there this year since Dad started chemo in May, but he wasn't feeling well enough to attend. 


Jeremy graduated from NSU with his Specialist in School Psychology! I cooked up a storm that weekend feeling awful only to find out I had the flu. These were the macaroon shells I made for him, not exactly pretty... but when you have to make your own almond flour because you can't find any it tends to be a little less fine ground. 


I also celebrated the end of the school year with two good friends who happen to be teachers, we got pedicures, and ate way too much.


Then Jeremy and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. He isn't the picture type, so you get to see the dessert we had ha!


June


It's June, so of course there was some VBS taking place! Julie I think was at a doctor appointment when we took this (we were counting down to her baby girl arriving this month), but getting to work with girlfriends made VBS so much more fun!


And then of course, we went to Puerto Rico. I need to finish blogging about it, but my Dad's family is from there. We were super lucky because his chemo was going so well he was released to travel with us and felt fine the entire trip. They even postponed a round so we could go:)


We even made the old man go zip lining for Father's Day!




July

Mom came and helped me with a slip cover project. To be as time consuming as it was it looked great. Sadly the slip cover died when I washed it after we moved. 


I finally convinced Jeremy to take me to The Farm!


 We played some golf, the heat was making me feel awful so I just drove the cart.


There was finally a blogger event that took place when I wasn't at work, so I went to the grand opening of West Elm in New Orleans and met up with my blog buddy Aimee.


We also announce that we were pregnant! That five year plan worked down to the day just about, we always said we would have kids after Jeremy graduated and we had been married 5 years. Literally the next month we were pregnant.


August

Dad had his last chemo treatment and came down with pneumonia the next day. That led the family on a less than fun adventure of him being sedated and on a vent in ICU for 3 weeks before finally being able to wake up and recover just enough to get moved to a rehab hospital for a month. He nearly died on us several times and freaked us all out quite a bit. 

All to show just how unpredictable life can be. Chemo went by the book, but a compromised immune system can pick up any little thing it wants to. We all had several nurses and staff stop up and say they never thought he would have survived it, I was just as surprised especially after sitting in ICU watching the monitors and their awful numbers. 

Mom and I looked a little crazy getting excited over terrible blood pressure just because he has risen a few numbers since the last visit we were allowed to have. 


I also started at a new school, lucky for me I have a principal that was super understanding and knew that I would be leaving at any second if something went wrong back home.


September

We found out we were having a boy and Dad finally woke up from the sedation just in time to get to Facetime with us to find out. We ended up not having to break hospital rules since he was sent to the rehab hospital, but Mom and I had gotten the ICU staff to agree to let us Facetime with him in there if need be. After all he had been through though they were letting him do just about whatever he wanted ha! 


Jeremy and I went to our first LSU game with our friends Christy and Aaron. That is one loud game! 


My morning/all day every day sickness started to ease up some. Funny thing was that with all the meds I was taking, vinegar and super sour stuff worked the best. This is my pickles, carrots, and vinegar, topped with lemon pepper snack I lived off of. 


October

We bought our first home!!


November

Nothing super eventful, just a baby bump, baby books, and traveling home for Thanksgiving. 




December

 Passed my glucose test, which was awfully awful to have to do right after Thanksgiving! Then again weighing yourself at the doctor at all during the holidays is just down right mean.


We opted for a simplified Christmas, just our old ghetto decorations. It was more important that we got the house unpacked than bought a big tree.


I was the most excited about getting this order in from Scholastic, very first one made for our own child.


Then there was that babymoon in Houston -


Where I beat Jeremy at a game of Top Golf, 3rd trimester belly and all!


There were aspects of this year that were great, and some that were terrible. Here's to hoping 2015 has a lot more great memories and a lot less terrible ones. 

The two biggies I'm waiting on is for Dad to get the free and clear from cancer and that this baby makes a healthy appearance!