2008 - Year in Review

So, we never got around to putting together a Christmas card this year. Oops. We feel bad about it, but since it's too late for Christmas now, we've decided to go the postage-free route and publish our year in review online.

We didn't fully realize this when we started keeping a blog, but it's a really good way for anyone to come and see what we've done all year. Luckily for all you readers, we only post two or three times a month, so you wouldn't be overwhelmed in trying to read every post from this whole year. So I guess now I don't feel too bad that we don't post something every other day like some of our friends.

On the right-hand side of this page are links to our posts from every month of the year. You can click through those if you like, but I will also post a couple of links to the major events of the year, along with some pictures that didn't make it onto the blog originally.

From January through March we were busy here finishing our family room in the basement. The room went from this:


To this...



thanks mostly to a lot of help from my father and father-in-law. For me, it wasn't as much of a do-it-yourself project as it was a do-it-themselves project. Just kidding; I did actually do a lot of the work myself, but I never could have done it alone.

In April we had a scare with our baby, Tori, having to spend nearly a week in the hospital. She was diagnosed with an atypical form of something called Kawasaki disease. Luckily the good doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center caught it quickly and were able to keep it from becoming something that would negatively impact her long-term.

We spent a lot of the summer outdoors playing with family,




with friends,



and trying to get our plants to grow.




I also got to go on a short vacation to San Francisco with my Dad and brothers to see the Cubs play the Giants, which was a lot of fun.




The end of summer was fully occupied by our quest to turn the dirt and weeds in our backyard into lush grass. We were mildly successful, in that the dirt and weeds became . . . wait for it . . . grass and weeds. Here are the before and after pictures:





We took our annual vacation a little late this year, in October. We trekked with all of Jenny's family to Orlando for a week with Mickey and Shamu. Jenny and I had a great time, even if our girls were probably a little too young to enjoy it fully.



In October, Tori celebrated her first birthday. And just a week ago, Madeleine turned three years old. Both girls really enjoyed their birthday parties with all of their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They are both getting so big, and loving each other as sisters often as they are fighting each other. Which is, of course, the natural order of things.



And lastly, we really enjoyed our Christmas last week. Santa brought Tori a bike to match the one that Madeleine got for her birthday. But Tori could not have cared less about the bike, when there were leftover treats laying around that Santa couldn't finish. We feel like the picture below illustrates the true Joy of Christmas.



Happy New Year to everyone, and we hope that 2009 brings you everything you could ever wish for. Check back in at this website once or twice a month for updates throughout the coming year, and don't forget to leave us comments below so we know that someone is actually reading this stuff!