It has been quite awhile since I have updated the blog -- however, I still have been working on some things off of the list.
On the day of our actual anniversary, I had to go to work to direct the band during the commencement ceremony for the school I work at. Then my husband and I went to a few graduation parties. And then he broke my car driving on dirt roads in the rural areas of town. Needless to say we were not very happy with each other.
However...we did celebrate on Monday night (so the day after our anniversary) by going out to dinner and eating the topper of our wedding cake.
I hope next year is not as eventful on our anniversary and we are able to enjoy the actual day more.
Since the weather has been getting nicer and I have needed to get out of the house to walk around as part of my recovery from the C-Section, we have been grabbing dinner to go and going for a walk. On one of the many nights, we went and got sandwiches at Jimmy John's and then had a picnic.
This is another thing that we've been meaning to get around to doing and didn't have the time to do so. We finally went to Goodwill today and dropped off a bag full of clothes and a box full of items that we no longer needed/wanted. It was great to finally get those out of our house.
We finally registered with the church we've been attending in town for almost the last year. As part of getting our daughter baptized, we needed to be registered members of the church -- so we figured now was as good of time as any.
We welcomed our first baby on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 2:04 a.m. It was a long ordeal, but totally worth it. I went in on Wednesday evening to start an induction due to rising blood pressure and a fear that the baby was going to be large. Contractions kicked in during the night and by Thursday morning my water was broken. I then labored for 18 hours with back contractions and no pain medication. By midnight, I was ready to push. Pushing lasted over an hour and the baby was not dropping. The decision was made to go ahead with a C-Section and in the wee hours of Friday morning we welcomed our daughter - Ella Adeline.
Before we got married last year, we had to organize a ton of addresses. This November, I paired down the list to family and friends as well as updating any address changes. It's nice to have the addresses in the computer to make life easier when we want to either look up or send out information to people.
We were undecided if we wanted to have a real Christmas tree this year because last year when my husband was looking for trees when he lived down here by himself, he found them to be extremely expensive. We found a tree farm who was selling trees early in December for a reasonable price, so we picked one out and had our first real Christmas tree. Usually, with my family we would have an artificial one, so it is one of about 5 in my entire life.
We decorated our home for Christmas this year. Since it was our first Christmas in our new home, it was pretty exciting to have our own Christmas tree, stockings, and all the decor.
My husband surprised me with a new version of family tree maker as well as a membership to Ancestry.com for Christmas. I will have to dig into some genealogy soon. It's always interesting to go through the site and find out what you can find out about family history.
Since this was our first Christmas as a married couple, I was looking forward to writing the Christmas letter. I always enjoy getting letters from family and friends as a way to wrap up what went on in their lives during the past year. We got to print it on that lovely Christmas stationary and we also sent with a photo Christmas card with a few wedding photos. Hopefully, family and friends enjoyed our letter as well. Here's what we wrote:
December 2009
Season’s Greetings!
It is hard to believe that 2009 is already drawing to a close.We have had a very eventful year.
As 2009 began, Isaac continued his work at Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) as a chemical engineer while Jen was finishing up her Music Education degree.She student taught at both Century High School and Jefferson Elementary in and obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in early May.
In early April, Jen was offered a job at Lakeview Community Schools where she now teaches kindergarten and first grade general music, 5-12 instrumental music, and junior high general music.It has been a rewarding as well as challenging experience thus far.
On May 16th, we were married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church .Even though it was a cold and blustery day in the middle of May, we were truly blessed with a beautiful ceremony and the support of so many wonderful family and friends.
On July 15th, we became homeowners of a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home.
In July, we also learned that we are expecting our first baby with a due date of March 9th 2010.The pregnancy is going well, and we are preparing our home and our lives for the arrival of the baby.
We are eagerly awaiting 2010 and hope that you and yours have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
In mid November, I attended the state's music educators conference. I attended a number of sessions and concerts, got a lot of free samples, and for the first time in my life experience a music educator's conference as an actual educator instead of a college student. It was definitely a different experience actually being a teacher and attending this conference. However, I was still being mistaken for both a high school and college student. Oh well... someday I will wish that people thought I looked younger.
