Another year gone by

Man, I know it's something that happens with age, but I swear with each passing year I find myself saying this line from the musical Rent "I can't believe a year went by so fast." I know it gets worse when you have children, so sometimes I'm thankful that we don't. Still, it is hard to believe 2011 is almost over already. Yet, as I sit here to start writing our recap of the year, I also can't believe how much we crammed into one year - maybe that is how it flew by. Let's rewind a bit.

January - The quietest month of the year. I decided to bite the bullet and take advantage of the free consultation at a client of Nate's to see if I'd be a candidate for Lasik. I was thrilled to learn that I was and set up my surgery for February.

February - We attended Winterfest as a belated Christmas gift to Nate and had a blast trying out all the best local beers MN has to offer. We enjoyed it so much we're going again this year. We had a most wonderful meal for Valentine's Day at Erte in NE Minneapolis. I had my Lasik surgery on February 18th and my life was forever changed. It is still the best thing I have ever done for myself. We participated in our first ever Praise Project benefit concert. We continued digging out from SO.MUCH.SNOW.

March - I had an eye opening and interesting experience filling in as a front desk person in another part of Fairview for one week. We got back on the running train as the snow started melting a bit towards the end of the month.

April - We celebrated my mom's birthday and Easter. We continued on with our running and were pleased with the progress we made. My mom and I took a fun spring arts sampler class at the park near my house and made some fun projects. Would like to go back there and do more.

May - Big month for us, celebrating five years of marriage over Memorial Day weekend. We opted to stay in town for the big day and visited a fantastic winery in Delano and then had a wonderful dinner at The Melting Pot downtown. I had my ears doubled pierced. Held our breath as a tornado tore through North Minneapolis and parts of Fridley, sparing my parents house by only a few blocks.

June - Nate decided to take his turn to see if he would be a candidate for Lasik and we were beyond shocked when he was! He had his surgery in the middle of June and also was super pleased with the results. We had a soggy time at this year's Rock the Garden, but I was still excited to see Neko Case, one of my favorite singers of all time, live in concert even if it wasn't quite the right venue for her. We hit a huge milestone in our running, able to do 30 minutes at one go. I ended up with a severely infected ear piercing and had one earring removed. The other one remains however. Started a fashion blog and have enjoyed the journey so far with that.

July - Celebrated the 4th with some Praise Project friends. Saw the Black Keys in concert over that weekend as well. Mom and I saw Josh Groban in concert too and hands down, he is the best live concert I have ever been to. We sweated through some extreme heat and took a week to go down and visit with our Kondrick relatives in St. Louis where we suffered through some REALLY extreme heat. We still had a good time there, visiting the Budweiser brewery and the Arch and all those fun tourist type things. While we were gone my awesome dad replaced our laundry room washtub and finally my basement doesn't smell musty anymore!

August - A quieter month again, we had a family reunion with Nate's family out in Wisconsin. We completed the delayed Torchlight 5K even if we couldn't quite run the entire thing. We brewed a bunch of beer so we'd have it ready for October and Oktoberfest. I came over an almost 30 year fear of loud noises by taking a gun safety class with Nate and for the first time ever, firing an actual gun.

September - We had another weekend up north with the Praise Project gang. We visited some wineries down south over Labor Day weekend. We decided to take a step back from the running for a bit so Nate could work through some stress issues he was having. We started getting the house in shape for Oktoberfest.

October - Oktoberfest celebration commenced. Another successful year and much fun was had by all. Put myself on a self imposed shopping ban to save up money for a Smartphone. Had a low key Halloween and did not dress up this year.

November - Returned to a place that caused a lot of pain in the past and were able to comfortably be there and close the door to the past (the old church), Did my annual trek for the Cities Sampler with Gina, celebrated my Muppets triumphant return to the big screen, enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving with Nate's family, and celebrated our big 3-0 and found that 30 is not as bad as I once feared. So far it's not really much worse than 29! Bought my iPhone and have loved it ever since.

December - Suffered through a pretty nasty cold, prepared to celebrate Christmas and had a wonderful holiday.

The end of the year has been calmer than other parts of the year. And I'm ok with that! Looking back through my review of the year it feels kind of nice to have things slowing down a bit! For the most part I would say 2011 was good. There were up and down moments as there are with any year, but we got through the not so great stuff and enjoyed the wonderful stuff. I don't know what 2012 holds, but I am looking forward to it.

Happy New Year one and all!