The holiday season has been very busy this year, and not just because of the holidays. All of 2010 was pretty busy for us, and as we start to look forward to 2011, I thought I would do a little recap of some of the major events of 2010 in our family. For those of you related to me, it will be a walk down memory lane, and for those few of you reading this who are not related to me, perhaps it will give a little more background and insight into me and my life.
Our son, Logan, joined the Army in late 2009 and graduated from basic training in February 2010. He was at Ft. Jackson, SC for basic, so fortunately we were able to drive down for the weekend for his graduation, as were my parents and Rob's (previously mentioned as "my husband") parents. It was a busy weekend, with a few headaches because of the vast number of people on base for the weekend's festivities, and the nasty, rainy, weather which forced the ceremonies indoors and created some confusion, but overall we were glad to be there. We're very proud that he has chosen to serve in the Army. After basic, Logan was off to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona for his AIT (Advanced Individual Training), which is essentially his specific job training.
After Logan's graduation, most of the next couple of months were relatively uneventful. The only real item of note is that around this time, after a long search, I finally found a knitting group that clicked. It may seem silly, but I had visited a couple of groups and guilds over the fall, looking for a group of fellow knitters to meet with regularly, and while they were all welcoming, none of them seemed quite the right fit. I've been on Ravelry for a couple of years and at one time had contacted the few people on that site that live in Sanford to see if they wanted to try to get together. We were unsuccessful in arranging anything that suited everyone's schedule, but one of the ladies I had contacted previously contacted me again early this year and asked if I wanted to meet up sometime. Since we both live in Sanford, but work in Raleigh, we met one night after work and then went to a guild meeting I had been attending some. We hit it off pretty well, so she invited me to the knitting group she attends regularly, and that's the group that finally clicked. It's a mixed group of people, ages, and professions, but I feel at home there and that I can be myself and they love to knit like I do!
In May, we were off to Boone to see our daughter, Carey, graduate from Appalachian State University. It was a fun weekend with my parents and Rob's parents. We stayed at a nice little hotel in Blowing Rock within walking distance of downtown Blowing Rock. The owners were very friendly, and it was nice to be able to walk downtown without having to find a place to park. It was a much colder weekend than we had expected for May, but other than that, and the fact that my father wasn't feeling very well, we had a good time.
In June, Rob and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We're not big on the actual celebration part, but we did spend a nice Saturday together visiting several NC wineries, and we brought home quite a bit of good wine to prove it!
Logan came home for 2 weeks in June between finishing AIT and reporting to his duty station at Ft. Bliss, TX. We had friends and family over to see him one Saturday while he was here and also surprised him with a visit from his grandmother that lives in Michigan.
On July 9th, my brother and his wife had their 3rd daughter. Like her two older sisters, she's a beautiful baby. She has to be the happiest, most cheerful baby I've ever been around. She rarely cries or gets fussy, and is content for just about anyone to hold her, or to just sit in her carrier or swing and watch what's going on. Also in July, Logan surprised us all with the announcement that he had gotten engaged. He was only 18 and had only known his fiancé for a few months, so we were very surprised, and a little concerned, but he seemed to know that she is the one for him. At the time, he said the wedding would be a couple of years away.
In August, we celebrated my parents' 70th birthday and 44th wedding anniversary with a family dinner at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. This turned out to be an eventful weekend. My sister and her boyfriend came in from San Francisco for the weekend, and he proposed to her on Friday on the main quad on the campus of UNC. My father, my sister, and I are all alumni of UNC and we are a definite UNC family, so it meant a lot to her that he would recognize that in his proposal. We had a great time at dinner and it was nice to hang out with my sister a bit, since we don't see each other that often.
Rob and I took a trip to the North Georgia mountains in mid-September. As I am enthralled with knitting, Rob is equally entranced by wood turning, so we went for a wood turning symposium. An entire weekend of talks and demonstrations on turning wood on a lathe. I attended a few of the sessions, but otherwise enjoyed some quiet time knitting and wandering around North Georgia a bit. And of course, I visited the local yarn shop! We stayed at Unicoi State Park, where the symposium was held. The closest town was Helen, GA, which is a small town that looks like a German alpine village. Touristy to the extreme, but fun to walk around for a bit. Rob learned a lot, we saw some really great and creative turned items, and it was a nice relaxing weekend.
In early November, Carey and her boyfriend came to spend a weekend with us here in Sanford. We had an enjoyable weekend just hanging out, and after they left I realized that it was the first time she had come home that it felt like having adult house guests for the weekend rather than a college student crashing at the house. It's nice to begin to develop an adult relationship with your children and not have to play the parent role all the time. Thanksgiving was spent at Rob's parents' home near Charlotte. My parents came down and had Thanksgiving dinner with us, and we had a good time.
The holidays snuck up on me this year. I had a lot going on with work and before I knew it, it was almost Christmas. But before we got to Christmas, we had another big event. Logan got married on December 19th. They had a small ceremony in Fayetteville, NC. She made a beautiful bride, and he was very handsome in his Class A uniform. We were glad that most of the family, including Logan's grandmother, aunt and uncle from Michigan were able to attend. They are young, but they seem committed to each other and committed to dealing with the ups and downs that marriage may bring. We hope that they will have a long happy life together. Unfortunately, Logan only had a few days leave, so was not able to stay through Christmas. He had to head back to Ft. Bliss, but he's in the process of getting all the paperwork filed and finding them an apartment off-base, and she plans to move out to TX in mid-January, so hopefully they won't be separated for much longer.
Due to everything going on, and the fact that I wasn't hosting this year, I didn't "do" Christmas this year the way I usually do. I did a minimal amount of decorating, and didn't even put up a tree. I had a small ceramic lighted tree on the bar in the dining room and put up my outside lights and that was about it. I also didn't do as much baking, since my house wasn't going to be full of guests to eat it all. I did make a few favorites and took some to the neighbors as usual. I didn't even send out Christmas cards, as I just couldn't find the time to sit down and write them all. (However, if you usually receive a Christmas card from me, don't despair, you will most likely receive an edited version of this post in a New Year's letter!)
We had a white Christmas!!!! We spent Christmas at my parents' house this year and really enjoyed it. My sister and her fiancé came in from CA. We went to Reidsville on Christmas Eve. Carey met us there and we hung out Friday with my parents and my sister and her fiancé. Friday afternoon the girls went and had manicures and pedicures, while the boys went to help Dad pick out and install a flat screen TV for Mom's Christmas present. I think Dad really wanted it as much as he wanted to get it for Mom, but I think they will both enjoy it. And for my techie husband, who also can't stand to just sit around without doing anything, it gave him something to do for a while. Christmas Day, while we were waiting for my brother and his family to get there, it started snowing. And kept on snowing. We had a nice Christmas dinner and some social time, including snowman building by my nieces, father and sister's fiancé. By the time Rob, Carey and I left around 5:30, Reidsville had close to a couple of inches of snow and it was still snowing hard. But by the time we got just south of Greensboro, 30 miles away, it was only rain.
But we didn't miss the snow here in Sanford, we just had to wait a little longer. It started here around midnight Saturday night and snowed all day Sunday off and on. Overall we ended up with 5-6 inches. That's quite a bit of snow for the sandhills of NC in general, and especially this early in the year. We had a lazy day Sunday, just hanging out reading and knitting and watching the snow, and other than a 2 hour power outage Sunday morning all was well.
Well, I believe I have probably written more than enough for one post, but at least I posted something! Tomorrow I start looking forward to 2011.
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