2015 Year in Review

By far, hands down, no contest – this was our busiest year ever.  But also our best one to date!

January 

We kicked off the year in Nebraska at my oldest nephews wedding.  It was so nice to spend that special day with them and to watch them get married.  We also spent some nice quality time with family!  We brought Hannah along with us and she did great.

February

We got Abby in February.  It was a quick decision on our part, and while I don’t ever recommend making quick decisions ESPECIALLY when animals are involved, I do have to say that this one worked out great.  Abby is the most lovable, attentive, playful little dog that I’ve ever met.  We love her to pieces.

March

We held a garage sale in March at my mother-in-law’s house.  Not our biggest one yet, but it was still successful!

We also lost our old, sweet kitty Masami.  She was 19.

April

April marked our 5-year anniversary!  We had a great anniversary and a nice dinner at The Melting Pot. 

We also had our Circuit Assembly plus our Memorial.

May

May was filled with last minute plans for our trip, including a shopping trip to Santa Fe.

June

June was a blur, but a great blur!  We left for England, Belgium and France

July

We kicked off July still in Europe (Belgium) and attended the Special Convention there.  It was amazing!

When we got back we learned that we got a new host congregation for our French group.

August

August was a little calmer than the previous months, thank goodness!  Watson began his service dog training.  We also started losing weight!!

September 

Our annual Fantasy Football draft was held in September.  I decided not to play this year, but I helped out at the draft.

I also spent some time getting my house in order!

And….I had dental surgery which was no fun.  I’m glad it’s over!

And……husband started a new job.  He spent a week in Denver for training and we got him all moved into his office downtown.

October

October was great.  My mom and dad visited and we went to Balloon Fiesta.  The weather was PERFECT!  We had fun just spending time together, going to flea markets, and eating of course. 

We had our English Circuit Assembly.

At the end of October my mother-in-law and I took a trip to Los Angeles.  We played tourists for the first two days, and then attended the French Circuit Assembly.

November – My newest nephew Connor was born.  Hubby and I also went to San Diego again (including Disneyland and a football game!).  I also had another dental procedure done.  Ugh.  I am so over the dentist!

December – December was probably our calmest month out of the entire year.  It was nice! 

Here's a little summary:

New pets:  1 (Abby)

New family members: 2 (nephew - Connor & niece-in-law - Emily)

Travels:

Nebraska (Lincoln, Omaha)

Iowa (Council Bluffs)

California (Mira Loma, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Hollywood, San Diego, Pacific Beach, Del Mar, Coronado & Anaheim)

England (London)

France (Paris, Cormeilles, Versailles)

Belgium (Ghent, Brussels, Bruges, Flobecq, Loppem)

2016 should be a bit calmer as far as travel.  I plan to take a trip to Nebraska to visit my family and meet my newest nephew.  And we might go to South America to visit friends that moved there a couple of years ago.  But that’s it (so far, ha ha).

Day 16 - Ghent & Convention Day 3

Final day of the convention.

We started off in French but then switched to English for the Public Discourse and for the rest of the afternoon. 

After the final song, the clapping lasted for five minutes at least.  Lots of hugging, gift giving, tears.

And music!

Goodbyes with signs.  Amazing.

After that we went back to our room to finish packing.  And we ordered a pizza.  Guess from where?  The ONLY pizza place that delivers in Ghent:  Dominoes.  :)  Ha ha.  I swear it tasted better there than here at home. 

It was an early evening for us.

Day 15 - Ghent & Convention Day 2

Day 2 of Convention.  All 4 of us sat in English this day.  There were 7 from English that got baptized (a total of 173 I think for the whole convention).  Another amazing day.  

We went to Ghent that evening to pick up some souvenirs and make it an early night and start getting a bit organized for packing.

Day 14 - Ghent & Convention Day 1

Convention Day 1!

First off, our hotel was about a 2 minute walk to the convention site.  I’m not exaggerating.  In fact, whenever we had to use the restroom during the assembly, we just went back to our hotel room.  It was easier AND quicker that way because of the long restroom lines.

Our hotel is on the left:

We were greeted with panels and panels of artwork done by local kids.  They had taken the artwork and had it screen-printed onto these canvases.  It was adorable.  More welcome signs.

The first day we sat in French.  It was amazing! I didn’t get as much out of it as I had hoped though, so we moved to English later on in the afternoon and we wanted to hear the Drama in English.

Here’s our cute little packed lunch…3 (!) little sandwiches, an apple, a pudding dessert, two pieces of chocolate and a bottle of water.

Little Caleb and Sophia head cutouts.  Adorable.

That night hubby and I were on our own (it was our friend’s anniversary) so we headed into Ghent for dinner.  We yelped a good restaurant and had a nice long dinner.  Then we used my Belgium book and took a nice little walking tour of the city.  It’s a beautiful canal city.