2014 In Review

Happy New Year's Eve, dear friends! Thank you so much for spending another year journeying along with us! It's such a blessing and an honor to have you all as part of our world. Thank you for your support, encouragement and overall love of us and this little piece of cyberspace of ours. We truly love how much you all love our blog!

It's amazing that there are only a handful of hours left to 2014. It seems like each year passes more quickly than the one before it. If only there was some way to slow down time a bit!

This year saw Grace continue to be as sweet and kind and gentle as ever while also finding her voice and speaking up for things that are important to her. We have watched her become a more confident reader and writer and have enjoyed watching her knitting skills improve, too. She is still deeply rooted in the world of fairies and gnomes and adores birds of all kinds and is still dreaming of learning to play the harp. It's hard to believe that in 2015 she will turn nine, and that after that it's all double digit birthdays from then on. I do so wonder what the nine year change will bring for her (and for all of us).

2014 was the year that Emma lost her first tooth (and her second and her third). She attempted to ride a bike sans training wheels and then not feeling ready to continue without them requested they be put back on. I love that she knows her limits and listens to that still small voice inside her and honors it. Emma adores morning lessons (and so does Grace) and also loves to play for hours and hours and hours. Creating, baking, cooking, dancing, helping, exploring and discovering are some of her most favorite things to do, and if she can do all of them each day even better!

We had a blast working together to make new garden beds, can strawberry jam, tomato sauce and peaches and do a little more painting on the fence. Hopefully next spring we'll finally complete that never ending painting project. We cheered Dave on as he worked so very hard to repair the front fence and rejoiced together when it was done!

The excitement reached a fever pitch as we traveled to Florida for a week of truly incredible adventures. Going to Clearwater Marine Aquarium, followed by Grace and Emma's first visit to Disney was beyond our wildest dreams and truly magical. I still get choked up just thinking about it all! Dave and I cannot get over the amazingess that was that week away, and we say all the time how truly glad we are that we waited until both girls were the ages they were for their first trip to Disney and therefore can carry with them the memories of this first trip there all on their own. 

With all the happiness and joy of 2014 we also experienced some sadness and grief. March saw us travel to New York to attend Dave's grandmother's wake and funeral. Being there with our family and watching as everyone helped our girls experience these end of life rituals for the first time (and such a positive experience it was) was such a blessing. Sadly, a couple of days after we returned home we were faced with more death as we said good-bye to our beloved dog Albert. And a few months later we bid farewell to Emma's guinea pig. As things often "come in threes" we thought we were good until we learned that our neighbor's sweet dog passed, followed by one more neighbor-loss as Miss Laura from next door passed from this world and into the next (a loss that shook us all). 

We continue to be grateful to live, learn, laugh and love together each and everyday. The girls and I thank our lucky stars always to have such a dedicated, hard working soul as Dave who makes this incredible life of ours possible! It's such a beautiful life the four of us live and we are so richly blessed.

We hope that your final hours of 2014 find full of joy and peace. We'll eat our traditional meal of Chinese food this evening, fill out our yearly time capsule sheets and stay up with the hopes of seeing the new year in (though I wouldn't bank on that last part occurring)! Happy New Year, dear friends! May your 2015 be full of love, peace, joy and harmony. xo