Year in Review

Wow, it's year in review time already!  I was pretty bad about keeping up the blog this year, so this could get pretty interesting.

Here are my goals from last year.  I will comment on them, then run down the year (month by month), then add my new goals.  You know the routine by now, right?

My 2012 Goals are:

Personal:

1.  Lose 40 Pounds- I gained 20.  Does that count? 

2.  Read 5 classics- I didn't read much at all this year.

3.  Better Photography skills- Too busy working on my numchuck skills, I guess, this one didn't get touched either.

Family

1.  Read to the girls 1 book 4 times per week.- Nope, didn't happen

2.  Make everyone's birthdays special.- FINALLY!  One I actually did!!

3.  Take the kids to Disneyland and to the beach. We did this one...and it was really fun!!!

4.  Blog every other week. um...didn't happen

Professional

1.  Earn my N4 (Promotion) almost done, just have to write a report on one of the processes I did.

2.  Thoroughly learn 2 more areas of the lab. Not quite. Still learning the ins and outs of the mass specs,

3.  Get a Chemist position (if one opens up!) Interviewed, but the position went to someone else.

2012 Year in Review-

January was Collin's birthday.  He had friends over, and they ate pizza and rode bikes.  It was a lot of fun.  We went to a gem and mineral show in Globe and surprised my grandparents.  It was cool to have a little glimpse into my grandpa's Rock Star world.

February was Caitlyn's birthday month.  She had a little party with friends from school.  They played My Little Pony and had fun together.  I guess I didn't get pictures of her party?    John and I went to George Strait/ Martina McBride in PHX.  We had so much fun!  

March was our Disneyland trip.  That was SO MUCH FUN!!!  We went to the beach one day, too.  It was cold, but really fun.  We celebrated our anniversary in March, too.  11 years :)  John's birthday, too!

April.  We went to the Easter Pageant in Mesa.  It was fun  I love the mesa pageant, and hope to make this an annual tradition.  Collin and Caitlyn had their gymnastics show.  

May- School let out, and all the summer activities began.  Collin won an award in gymnastics for being one of the best gymnasts in his class.  Not bad for only being 3 months into his gymnastics career!

June- baseball, t-ball, and swimming... lots of it!

July- 4th of July- I took off work, and we went to the fireworks.  Caleigh's birthday on the 3rd.  Cam's on the 11th.  Mom was diagnosed with cancer.  Boys baptized; we were sealed!  Crazy, awesome, lots of conflicting emotions type of month!

August- Mom's surgery/ies, I was transferred to another crew/ department. Stupid school started again!

September- Justin got married!  John and I went to Jason Aldean/ Luke Bryan.  Really fun concert.  

October- Halloween; Texas trip. LOTS of Soccer

November- Thanksgiving.  Collin was asked to play on the post season travelling team, but couldn't because he is playing basketball.  Soccer ended, and basketball started.

December- My birthday and Christmas.

What a year.  I'll try and fill in the gaps later....and add pictures.

Texas!

Last month (meaning October) we were able to take a trip to North Texas to visit family.  It was such a fun and relaxing trip!  The kids are now old enough that we were able to make most of the trip during the day with minimal fighting.  It was GREAT!  I took the last night of my last rotation off, and the first day of this rotation off, and John was able to take some time off as well, so we had a whole week without work.

While we were in Texas, we spent time with John's sister, Erin and her husband Craig and son Jesse.  We went to Jesse's football game (Texas football- heck yeah!) and stayed up late playing phase 10 every night.  One of the days, we went to Dallas and ate at Razoo's- our favorite!  It's a chain Cajun place, and it's super fun.  When  we go there, we always get the Jaws platter.  Basically, imagine any critter you would find in a swamp- gators, catfish, shrimp, and oysters- bread 'em, fry 'em, and serve 'em piled high on a turkey platter on a bed of french fries with a generous helping of hush puppies, and that's the jaws!  We've never finished the platter.  One of these days- when the boys are teenagers, maybe, but the entire 12 years we've been eating there, we always end up with tons of extra.  This time, we had our entire family and John's sister all working on it, and we still ended up with a roaster pan full of leftovers.  I think the gator tail is my favorite part of the dish.  It's really good.

We drove around our old neighborhood/town and went down memory lane.  It felt like we had never left.  The kids said it felt like they were home.  When we returned to AZ, however, they admitted that it was nice to see mountains again.

On Friday, we drove over to Allen and got the kids new shoes at the outlet mall there.  I miss having shopping so close!  Every time we went through a new town, and passed their schools and football stadiums, we ooed and awwed over them.  

Book Fair

I took the kids to the book fair, and Collin got a really cool book.  And by really cool, I mean he and I like it, but the rest of the world probably thinks we are just a little bit nerdy.  The book is about all the elements on the periodic table, and has a page or two devoted to facts about each element.  Nerd power!

Caitlyn was so excited to go to the book fair.  She reminded me daily about it.  Heck, who am I kidding, she reminded me multiple times a day most days!  When she went to the book fair with her class, she found this cute little kitty journal with a real working lock.  It was everything a seven year old girl would ever want- pink, kitten on the front, and the kitten even has a princess crown on its cute little furry head!!!  Holy cuteness overload!  It's the girly girl trifecta...all in one item!  When I finally took the kids to the book fair (on the very last day, during the very last hour it was open...), Caitlyn rushed over to the spot where she previously saw the journal, and IT WASN'T THERE!  Cue the crying and whining...  I was able to make out phrases such as, "I told you we needed to go to the book fair yesterday, Mom!" and "Now I'll never have the kitty journal!"  I tried to get her to look at other (possibly not quite so pink) books, but none of them interested her.  I recruited Cameron to distract her.  Poor boy did his best, but she wasn't going to be distracted!  I walked around looking at different books.  "Look Caitlyn!  This one has a kitty on it!  This kitty is playing with puppies!"  Because really, what's cuter than kitties playing with puppies?  NOTHING!  "Here's a princess book!"  Nothing would take its place.  The other kids picked out their books, and as I was gathering them to leave, I happened to glance over at one of the tables, and THERE IT WAS!!  The KITTY JOURNAL!!!  She grabbed it, I paid for everything, and we all left.  I was the triumphant hero of the day!  At least until the next major catastrophe struck.

Cameron chose the next book in the series he is currently reading- he's so practical.  He wanted to know what the point of purchasing a book is.  You know, because usually the library has all the books you can read.  And they are free.  Love that boy and his darn logical thinking :)

Caleigh chose a fashion designer type book.  It has stencils so she can draw pretty princesses and pretty dresses.  It's cute and she loves it.

Pictures are a'comin' as soon as I wrestle my phone away from the baby princess :)

Caleigh the Soccer player

Caleigh Bug started soccer this year!  She went to her first game on Saturday, and was SOOOOO cute!  She is 4, and very small for her age, so I worried about her playing, but she loves it!   Her uniform is HUGE on her, and she can't even wear the shorts provided with the uniform, but after a few minor modifications, she was able to get dressed in her uniform and play.  She played the whole game.  She chased the ball up and down the field.  She was usually about 5 yards behind the crowd, but her little legs were moving super fast!  She's about a foot shorter than everyone, so she had to take about two steps for everyone else's one step!  

Here's a picture of her in her uniform.  Gotta love the delay on my camera phone- misses darn near every cute expression!  Oh well,  good thing she's such a cutie pie :)

Jason Aldean Concert

This past weekend John and I went to the Jason Aldean concert in Glendale, AZ.  It was awesome!!!!!!  Luke Bryan opened, and put on a good show.  Well, at least what we saw.  We ended up being stuck in traffic half a mile from the venue for 1.5 hours.  We planned on being about 30 mins early to the concert.  The venue holds about 20,000 people.  Having spent 7 years in north Texas, we know that 20,000 people is a good 3A or average 4A Friday night football crowd...plenty of people, but nothing out of control, right?  Riiiiiight....  the city of Glendale does not believe in crowd control.  20,000 people headed to that concert and we all had to go through the regular stop signs and stop lights- no cops were out directing traffic.  The line to get into the pavilion was literally at least a mile long in every imaginable direction.  IT SUCKED!!!!

Once we got to the pavilion and found our seats, it was awesome!  The music was loud.  The crowd was great.  Time flew by, and before we knew it, the clock struck 11, and we were on our way back out of the pavilion.

Unky Sussin is Married

This weekend, my brother, the kids' beloved Unky Sussin got married.  I was a total dork and didn't even bring my camera, but I'm hoping to steal some pictures to put on the blog eventually.

The wedding ceremony took place in the Mesa, AZ LDS temple.  During their sealing, I was honored to sit in the "mother" spot beside my brother, and to watch the whole ceremony up close and personal.

Laura, his wife (Justin has a WIFE???  Awesome!), looked beautiful on her day, and Justin was so handsome.

After the temple ceremony, they had a ring ceremony.  It was such a treat to have so many family members on hand to celebrate his big day.  After they exchanged rings, we had a Hawaiian-themed luncheon that my dad and step-mom had catered.  It was REALLY good.  That evening we had the first reception in Mesa with mostly her family and friends, and will have the second reception this weekend for the Gila Valley folks.

They should be returning from their honeymoon in a couple of days...then I will be eagerly anticipating an announcement regarding a new niece or nephew!  (I kid, I kid...kindof.... ;) )