Where to begin?

Its been a a crazy year so far. Goodness. I don't quite know where to begin. Hmm..

For starters, Spencer started his Master's program in January. He LOVES the classes, and the challenge of being in school again. The program is 10 classes, each 8 weeks long. He finished his first class this past week with an A :) I am so proud of him!!

My brother, William, got engaged in January!!!! I am SO stoked for him. He is so happy, and his fiance, Megan, is awesome. They will be getting married October 16th!

Also in January, my sister Sara and her husband, Sam, traveled to Ethiopia to bring home the two newest members of the family - Sadie (10 months) and Sebastian (8 months). Welcome to my new niece and nephew!!!! They are doing SO well, and are greatly loved by their parents and older brother and sister.

February 4th, James had throat surgery. I won't go into much detail, because it was a rough week before and 2 rough weeks after the surgery. His sleep apnea was getting quite bad, and his tonsils were not just "kissing" in the back of his throat anymore - they were overlapping! No wonder he had such a hard time sleeping :( So they took those bad boys out, along with his adenoids. I was grateful that my parents could be there before, during and after the surgery. We were all able to rotate in and out of the recovery room to give James our love and support. My parents even treated Spencer and I to a night out after the surgery so we could enjoy a dinner and some time to ourselves before the rough night ahead - it was great! It was nice having the extra support. We were two worried parents, and it was nice to have our hands held a bit while we worried. It took the full two weeks, but James is doing perfectly, and has certainly hit his terrible twos....actually...come to think of it, he hit that at age 1...hmm...

Did I mention we had a blizzard start the day after James had surgery? Yeah...30 inches of snow. That's a memory I would like to block out hahaha :)

Feb 15th, I traveled alone to Las Vegas. Thanks to work funding the trip, I was able to go to the Western Veterinary Conference held at Mandalay Bay. It was AMAZING. There were over 13,000 people in attendance! The lectures were refreshing, and provided so much new information! I had a blast, and learned so much. It was liberating to travel by myself to some place new - I had never gone somewhere where I didn't have someone meeting me on the other end, so it was different. I enjoyed the trip immensely, but learned quickly that Vegas is not as glamorous as people make it out to be. I came home 4 days later, and am STILL working on typing up my CE notes. I think I'll be at that for awhile....

Which brings us to March! Wait a minute...its MARCH??? *sigh* Time goes by so fast!

March means Mr. Dad's birthday (March 10th) (James and I are going down to visit Mr. Dad on his B-day!!! Yay!!) and James' birthday (March 27th). Spencer has a big conference in Tampa next week, and while he is gone, my Mother in law is coming to help me with James! We've made a tradition of this - At least once a year, when Spencer travels, Bruce or Liz come out and play with us for a week or so! Grateful to have the opportunities to do stuff like that :)

On an entirely different note, we are officially trying for baby#2 :) We'll keep everyone in the loop about that as time goes on. :)

I think that's all for now....I feel like I am leaving so much out! I know I am a non-committal blogger - I will try to do better. It seems like when I finally get time to blog, so much has happened I don't know where to start!

C-c-c-oollllld

It is SO cold outside. Wind chill -10, and in the low teens outside. And windy. GROSS... I know that many places are much more cold, but I can't remember Virginia EVER being this cold. Good gracious. I'll be glad when its back to the 30s and 40s so James and I can go for our walks again! Until then, the mall is our playground, its back to the gym :)

By the way - HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Cookies with Daddy

James made chocolate chip cookies with Spencer today. It hard to keep James out of the kitchen when we are doing stuff because he really likes to "help". So lately we have been pulling a kitchen chair up to the counter, and letting him stand and "help cook" He LOVES it. He loves to be able to handle the big spatula, spoons and measuring cups, and Spencer made sure that today, he even helped with the ingredients. Spencer took this video and a couple of pictures to mark the occasion

As you can see, he had an awesome time. We love our little man so much. He is a burst of sunshine every day, and keeps us smiling with this sweet hugs and crazy energy.