2009 in Review

I keep what I call "my book." It is essentially a day planner in which I write the usual planner type stuff; appointments, exciting happenings, birthdays, etc. I have saved my books from the last five years. They provide an interesting chronicle of my life in a more palatable, bite-sized, and not-as-intimate-as-a-journal way. I enjoy looking back on major events each year to see what all has transpired. Here is 2009 in review:

January:
1-New Year's Day: Shawn worked an extra EMT shift on New Year's Eve and I ended up watching that TLC show about the Tree Man. Exciting.
7-We went rock climbing for our 3 year anniversary.
12-I started a news "fast" where I didn't watch, listen to, or read any news for 40 days. It was actually quite awesome and taught me a lot about self-discipline and not allowing negativity to distract me from all the good in my life.
20-Barack Obama was inaugurated as president.
21-Shawn began the application process for the Lee's Summit Fire Department.
31-I took a cloth diaper class and began cloth diapering the kids. It was a fairly successful experiment, though we ultimately abandoned it for logistical reasons.

February:
Throughout the month of February, Shawn had several steps to attend in the process of the LSFD hiring process.
8-Claire's first visit to the ER. Turned out to be a double ear infection.
14-Valentine's Day dinner at the Nazarene church in Harrisonville where Shawn and I played the Newlywed Game. Shawn horribly embarassed me by describing our first kiss in front of all the people in attendance. Nice.
17-A "Family Reunion" of sorts in St. Louis.
21-I taught my first childbirth education class at Christian Fellowship Church in Columbia.
23-Our car died. Fortunately, it was a quick fix and didn't cost much.
27-My grandfather passed away.

March:
3-My grandfather's funeral in Little Rock.
6-Shawn had another interview at LSFD.
21-Shawn tried out for a semi-pro football team, the Midwest Titans.
22-Shawn had his 31st birthday.
24-Shawn found out he made the Titans team.
29-Went to a casino for the first time in my life. I was unimpressed and only spent five dollars.

April:
We spent a fair amount of time looking around the Kansas City area for houses as we contemplated buying our first house.
10-Shawn found out that he did not get a job with the LSFD.
20-I taught the obstetrics portion of an EMT-B class in Harrisonville. The birth footage I showed the class made one guy throw up. Otherwise, it went really well.
22-I sat for the Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator exam.

May:
1-My dear sister graduated from college.
6-My mother-in-law was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was a very scary day. We didn't know what to expect.
24-We made an offer on our first ever house. It was a real fixer-upper and a foreclosure, so we bid very, very low on it. The offer was not accepted.
25-Shawn's previous job in Bahrain came open and his former boss asked if he'd like to rejoin the team.
26-We decided that we were on our way back to Bahrain.
31-My neice and nephew arrived and stayed with us for a week while their parents were out of town. It was crazy with five kids for an entire week!

June:
1-Shawn got the Big V. Weird how it coincided with us having five kids under our roof, huh?
9-12-Packing and preparing for our move back to Bahrain.
13-Garage sale to offload the items we had acquired in the year we lived back in the States. Amazing how much we Americans and store up when we put our minds to it.
15-We left Harrisonville, MO to go visit family before we left for Bahrain.
17-Went to Indiana to visit my family.
18-I received notification that I passed the Lamaze exam and was an LCCE!
20-We left the States, bound for Bahrain....again.
21-Arrived in Amman, Jordan and ended up staying overnight after we missed our connection.
22-Arrived in Bahrain...again.
23-Shawn started his first day in Bahrain.
24-We moved into our villa in Hidd.

July:
I began teaching a three-sibling group of Arab children who live in our neighborhood. They began coming over to my house for tutoring in English and have since become regular fixtures at our house.
4-We hosted a get-together for the 4th with Shawn's co-workers.
16-My mother-in-law had successful surgery to remove the brain tumor she found out about in May. We were very grateful that things went so well.
18-My sister found out she was pregnant with her third baby, due in April 2010.
27-Claire turned 1 year old!
30-I ended up having surprise surgery for a hernia repair. The doctor informed me that I would have to refrain from lifting anything over 10 pounds for a month! Yeah, right!

August:
I spent most of the month of August being pampered by my mother while recovering. It was so nice to have her here.
2-My mother arrived to stay with me for a month while I recovered from surgery. God bless her!
22-Ramadan began.
22-We attempted (again) to potty train Quinn.

September:
1-My mom left to head back to the States.
2-Shawn taught a rock climbing safety class on the Base. I got to go and help.
3-I hit a construction worker who was sleeping in my driveway. It was a very unpleasant experience, but thankfully he was given a reasonably clean bill of health after a trip to the ER.
20-Eid Al-Fitr.

October:
4-I started a scuba class to get my PADI certification.
6-I enrolled in a midwifery program.
7-My brother-in-law, Matt, shipped off to Iraq with the Navy.
30-My first ever open water dive. It was awesome and scary at the same time.

November:
2-Kai started his first day at Arabic school.
4-My 28th birthday. My dad also ended up in the hospital for swine flu and pneumonia. :(
14-I finished my open water dive certification!
15-Kai turned 5 years old!
22-We took Quinn and Kai to the Wahoo water park in Manama for the kids' birthdays. Quinn hated it and Shawn had to take her home while I stayed with Kai. He came back after dropping her off with Nanny Theresa and we ended up having a blast.
26-We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house.

December:
8-Quinn turned 3 years old!
15-I taught an infant massage class on the Base.
25-We had a very, very quiet Christmas with just our little family. It wasn't the same without everybody around!
31-We went out on the town with some friends on New Year's Eve and had a blast dancing the night away.

I Wanna Blog

It's ironic that my most recent post, entitled "Two Months" is pretty much the exact same state we're in right now. Things are up in the air with jobs, living arrangements, etc.

So after many MORE months of neglecting my blog, I've decided I want to try to blog more. With any luck I'll do a better job this time around.