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2009 in Review

I'm going to attempt to recap the year in one blog post.  Wish me luck!

In January, Caleb turned two and we celebrated with a cars/trucks party.  We had lots of fun playing and even ate a fun bulldozer cake that Julie made!  Matt went to Snow Camp with the youth group for a long weekend and just about froze to death.  They liked it so much that they're going back this year!

February and March brought more youth group ski trips for Matt and lots of snow!  In fact, we had a really late, unexpected snow storm in March that kept us out of school for several days.  It was a nice break, even if we did have to make it up at the end of the year!  Caleb didn't overly enjoy the snow, so he basically chose the cry the entire time while we required him to have fun.


On April 3rd, Matt and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary.  Matt's schedule forced us to wait until May to go away for the weekend, but we had a great time in the Northern Neck of Virginia.  Our innkeepers were really sweet and very hospitable, but there wasn't a lot to do around in the area!  We did head over to Williamsburg to check out the shops and such.  It was a fun little trip.

June marked the end of the school year and the beginning of Matt's summer trips.  His first one was on a mission's trip to Northern Maine.  They were just 100 yards from Canada and even picked up Canadian phone signals.  This made it difficult for Matt to call Julie at all and with very limited internet access, it made for a loooong week for both of them.  Julie passed the days away at our local beach with Caleb where he was content to play in the sand for several hours at a time--as long as he didn't have to sit in the sand!

July was chocked full of events:  Matt turned 31 on the 12th, we all spent a week helping out at Vacation Bible School at church, Matt headed to Pittsburg for Momentum for a week, and our little family went to Lancaster, PA for an awesome week of fun!  We took Caleb to Dutch Wonderland, which he absolutely loved.  Our "home" for the week was a working dairy farm that was tons of fun.  The highlight of the trip was when Caleb got to bottle feed a tiny calf that he named Lucy Long-Tongue.  It was a great week of memories.

In August, Matt had a week of Absolutely Awesome, which is kind of like VBS for middle schoolers.  Julie tried to cram as much fun into the last few weeks of summer as possible, and she planned a trip to Baltimore to ride the Ducks and go to an Orioles game.  Caleb had won free tickets at the library, and one of the available dates worked perfectly with the trip Julie had already had in the works!  The Ducks were a lot of fun and Caleb was amazed that this boat/bus could ride on land and water.

September meant getting back into a routine.  Caleb was with Matt on Mondays, Mommom on Tuesdays, and Amy on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Fridays were spent at Mom's Morning Out, which is a preschool program at our church.  He thoroughly enjoys it and loves his teachers.  He has learned the Pledge of Allegiance and we are enjoying his stories about school.

October and November were marked with some medical concerns for Caleb.  We were concerned about an intestinal polyp, so he had a colonoscopy done at Johns Hopkins.  The colonoscopy came back fine and we were incredibly impressed with the care Caleb received at JH.  The people there were wonderful and we would highly recommend the hospital to anyone!!  We also had Thanksgiving at our house this year and were able to focus on thankfulness in a new way with Caleb's health fresh on our minds.

December's magic was even more fun this year now that Caleb has an understanding of Santa and Christmas.  We have worked hard to balance the true meaning of Christmas with the fun of Santa Claus and his reindeer.  Caleb received a tractor for Christmas and was incredibly excited about his new toy. 

That brings us to today--the last day of 2009.  It's been a good, full year of memories made with a wonderfully sweet 2 year old.  We're hoping that 2010 will give us new opportunities to love others.  Happy New Year!

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