Teachers Have It Easy: You Were a Good Year, 2015

Yep.

I basically took a 4-month blogging hiatus. Oops.

I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, though, and offer a bit of a retrospective of the past year and begin 2016 with a clean slate while also filling in the gaps of my less-than-consistent blogging schedule.

The short version is this: I thought 2015 was an amazing year.

January
Darryl and I kicked off the year in California. We went to the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl, then traveled into Temecula.

Toward the end of the January, he completed "The Dopey Challenge" at Disney World, something that I thought he was nuts for doing when he signed up for it, but I was very proud of him for completing it. The experience was even more special because several of his family members ran the marathon portion with him.

February
February was a bit of a low-key month, but Amelia and I took a girls' trip to Birmingham to go to the StepSing show at my alma mater, Samford. I loved showing Amelia the campus, and we also saw my former student Katie after the StepSing performance.

My parents came up in February, also, and my mom and I spent a day together and ended the day by seeing a performance of Les Mis at a local theatre. So good!

March

In March, we got rid of the CR-V we had bought right before Amelia was born, and I got a Subaru Outback. I love it!

Darryl and I also celebrated 16 years of marriage. (And I'm going to confess I have no idea what we did to celebrate. Dinner, maybe?)

Amelia also performed as the Little Red Hen in a production of The Little Red Hen. She did a fabulous job!

April

We made the trek to Baton Rouge to visit some of our friends that we missed (and still miss) dearly. We had such a great time catching up with everyone!

May

Four words: School's. Out. For. Summer!!!!!!

June

Amelia and I visited my parents, and we took a sunset pirate cruise!

We took a family trip to Yosemite and then traveled on to Lake Tahoe to meet up with some of Darryl's family.

July

Darryl brought home a surprise in the form of a mini-dachshund puppy that Amelia named Billy. Boy, did he introduce a whirlwind of activity into our home! We surely do love him, though.

My friend Rebecca and I took a girls' trip to Temecula and had such a good time, we decided we need to take a trip every year!

August

Amelia started 2nd grade. SECOND GRADE! Seriously, wasn't she just a sweet little baby riding along in her infant seat? (Incidentally, she is having an awesome year so far!) I also started back to work, but I didn't bother taking a photo of me in my back-to-school outfit with my school bag. :-)

Amelia also achieved her goal of taking a selfie with Wolfie, our mascot.

This was also the month that our dear friend Mr. Patterson passed away. He was such a wonderful man.

Darryl also finished the built-in bookcases that he said would be ready by Memorial Day (nope!), July 4th (nope!), the end of summer (nope!), Labor Day (yes, Lord!). (Side note: While it might not have been the fastest project, he did an AMAZING job, and they really transformed the look of the room.)

September

Amelia started playing soccer for the first time ever this fall. She enjoyed it a good bit, and I think it was good for her to be on a team. Her favorite position was goalie. (Fun fact: Her team did not score a single goal until the final two games of the season, when they scored several!)

I became an assistant coach (along with my friend/colleagues Tim and Lisa) of the quiz bowl team (that's right -- I would never be the coach of something ATHLETIC, for Pete's sake), and we enjoyed a fun competition on the High Q quiz show that airs locally.

My mother and I also had a memorable evening attending a Willie Nelson concert. She has wanted to see him perform as long as I can remember. It was a fun (and definitely interesting) experience!

(That's right. My mom is holding a bandana that says, "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.")

October

During the fall (I can't pinpoint which month), Darryl and I finally joined a couples' group with our church. Several of the ladies and I went to a women's event that actually turned out to be quite good. (I mainly wanted to go to see/hear Melanie Shankle, whose blog I've been reading for years, talk. I told the girls in the group I had no idea what to expect; all I knew was that Melanie was funny and they would enjoy her. We ended up having a great time, and I even got to meet Melanie!)

I took Amelia to a pumpkin patch. I'm not sure how many more years she will like doing things like this, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can!

We had a great homecoming week at school, ending with a "Fun Day" and a football game that made me so proud of our school and student body.

Darryl ran the Marine Corps Marathon and said it was probably one of his favorite races he's ever done. (He's also trying to convince me to run it with him in 2016. We will see...)

"Birthday Season" for the three of us began with Darryl. Woot woot!

And we ended with Halloween, of course. Amelia was Hermoine Granger from Harry Potter. A few couples came over with their kids to our house for some food and trick or treating fun.

November

I turned 42 and while I have no photo evidence, I had a fun birthday and felt very loved.

Amelia turned 8 and opted to invite just a couple of girlfriends to see the new Peanuts movie and to come back to our house for cake and pizza.

(How do you like Darryl the photobomber back there?)

We also enjoyed having our friends Rebecca and Damian over for Thanksgiving. I completely failed on taking photos. :-(

December

Y'all, December was crazy...just as it is for almost everyone. I could post a ton of photos, but I won't. (I'll just say that this post has taken about four times the length of time I thought it would, and I'm just ready to stick a fork in it and call it a day. But I will forge on!)

Amelia walked with the chorus as part of the Christmas parade.

We did some fun activities like ice skating and going to the Nutcracker. We were very fortunate to have my parents AND Darryl's family come up for Christmas. We had twelve people in this house (including us), and it was the craziest but also one of the most fun Christmases I can remember.

Amelia has embraced Star Wars in a big way, and she was thrilled when we all went to see the movie the day after Christmas.

I went to see the lights at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens this past Monday night with my friends Tim, Max, and Anna. It was pouring rain, but the tickets said, "Rain or shine," so we went. The lights were beautiful, the company was perfect, and it was quite the adventure. Also, I'm pretty sure my jeans weighed 20 pounds by the time the evening was over.

And then today, we went to the Peach Bowl game with some friends of ours. Florida State didn't win, but we had a fun time anyway. (Also, the Marching Chiefs are always a thrill to watch!)