2010: In the books

January
Not much happened in January. As usual, it was cold.  In spite of that, I spent a lot of hours walking along the frozen lake, marveling at how it changed day to day.

February

In February, after 3 months of waiting, our new couch finally came.

Of course, it was ripped, and I fought with the nasty furniture place for months to get it right.

But all was not lost, as we had a lot of fun in Chippewa Falls

March
In March, we celebrated our new 5 year old with Brad Beach at a Wave game.

 And on a serious note, we changed course in our life plans as I started down the road of medication for my arthritis.

April
In April, we had a fabulous vacation in San Diego, visiting Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the La Jolla seals and spending a great time on Mission beach.

May
May is always a jam-packed month of fabulousness for me.  We spent a great birthday weekend geocaching:

I had a beautiful self-portrait painted for me for Mothers' Day

Baseball practice began

As did golf lessons

My nephew was confirmed

I checked #21 off my list when I took my picture in Chicago's Millennium Ball, and #23 when I ate at Xoco

We celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary watching the first part of Rigoletto (the 2nd half we spent in a bar. Yeah, we're still not opera people)

June
June was all about fun.  We had Tigers softball games

Brewers games

Carnivals

Graduation parties

And the Orange Elephants.

July
In July, C-man actually got over his water phobia and willingly participated in swimming lessons

 We spent the 4th of July in Chippewa Falls with family

Endured the floods and the subsequent long-term fighting with the rotten village to get the problem resolved

And danced with my son in his "big man suit" at a family wedding

August
In August, I had the chance to spend some time with some dear friends in Northern California.

And watched the grapes grow

There were more Brewers games

Trips to the pool

Eating our way through State Fair

And we wrapped it all up with a tremendous back to school vacation in Eagle River that was filled with canoe rides, hot tubs, mini-golf and Harry Potter movies.

September
September brought another year of school.  K5, this time

We picked apples

Got the recipe for Kaiserscharmm, and realized it has absolutely no apples in it

Met a beautiful new family member

And I took the leap into IV medication.

As we moved into October, we picked pumpkins (his named "Dirty", mine "Warty")

Trained dragons with friends at an epic party of fun,

and saw a lot of beautiful birds at the Horicon Marsh.

In November, we survived chairing the school rummage sale, successfully helping the school earn over $15,000 profit

Jingled through the zoo with my parents to benefit the Arthritis Foundation

And were thankful with family in Coleman.

In December, I sadly lost an aunt

 Happily celebrated first snowfalls

Christmased with the Pelots,

Fa-la-laaaed at home

And finished it off with a week tearing apart the house on some much overdue home improvement projects.

2010 wasn't a year of extraordinary and amazing things. In fact, it had more than its fair share of disappointments, not the least of which was pumping my body full of various "medicines" that never seemed to fulfill on any of their promises.  But in spite of all that, it was a full year; Full of love, family, and fun.

May our 2011 be as lucky.

By the numbers

11- Years ago today, I met my husband at the Milwaukee Ale House

31- Spots in my drywall that were patched and are now trying to dry in spite of the rain so I can paint them

30- Minutes waiting in line to buy tickets to see the mummies at the Milwaukee Public Museum

10- Minutes until C-man proclaimed he was done with the mummy exhibit because the music was giving him a headache. (To his credit, the music was grating)

3- Candles I have lit in our bedroom to try to get rid of some strange stink that began yesterday and I cannot pinpoint nor get rid of

3- Months since I've been well

11- Days left on this latest course of antibiotics. I'm so tired of being sick and not getting better, I could just scream

1- Day left of 2010, and then it's time for the resolutions to begin

More vacation days

While some in the house are doing things like this:

and this:

C-man and I escaped this

by doing things like this:

Next up, a trip to see the mummies at the museum.