January - I went show shoeing for the first time, ever. The best part? It was with my friends from school! They came up from Prosser and we met at Suncadia where we rented show shoes for a couple of hours and trekked around. It was fun!
February - February brought my return to KYG. I realize I only missed the actual conference one year, but one year makes a difference! It was hard for me to work with some amazing youth at training in January, and not be able to see them in action in February last year, but this year was much better! Our group of girls did a fantastic job of rolling with the punches and looking ahead for potential problems. This year's group of girls should be just as good :)
March - Baby goats, baby calves, more baby goats....babies, babies, babies!! March and April are a couple of my favorite months of the year because all the baby animals are beginning to frolic and play. Don't get me wrong, they're super cute when they're just a week old, but when they follow you around, or they run and jump and play tag with each other, it's soooo much cuter!
April - Spring break!! That's about as exciting as my April got....but hey, I got to spend lots of time around the farm, and took lots of pictures. It's probably when I took the most scenery/animal pictures all year long...
May - I moved. Again. I originally had a two bedroom apartment which I didn't really need for the price I was paying. Granted, I had lots of storage space and didn't feel cramped, but my budget sure did! I couldn't round up anyone to come from home with Mom and Dad to help, but the Prosser Football team happens to have this Hire-A-Mustang fundraiser every spring, so I overpaid some incoming freshmen to help move. They were even gutsy enough to move things like my overstuffed chair down the flight of stairs between buildings. Bonus? Everything got moved within an hour :)
June - Marathon trip to Utah! Way back when (2009, ha!) as a delegate to National 4-H Conference the Washington and Utah delegations hung out all the time, so much so that other delegations named us Utashington and, well, it stuck. So Lindsey and I decided to marathon it to Utah for a weekend. We drove down in two days, but then booked it back in one after spending a couple of days there. It was fun to see our old friends, and I hope they can come here or we go back down there again soon!
July - Travel, travel, travel!! The first part of the month took me to Northern California and back with a few 4-H kids to do our first 4-H exchange. We all had a great time traveling down and back, exploring in California and making lots of memories. My favorite aspect had to be that I had all five kids in my car at one point, and it was great to talk to all of them.
Within just a couple of days after returning from California, I had unpacked and repacked suitcases to fly to Washington, D.C. with another group of my favorite 4-H kids. While our trip didn't begin as planned, what with a delayed flight turning into ten hours at the airport turning into lost luggage, we all still managed to have a good time. It was one of the biggest learning experiences I've had to date, but it's by far one I will treasure forever.
August - A classroom inside?!?! Why yes, yes indeed! All of my classroom supplies, books, etc., were moved to my new classroom in June before the school year ended, but I hadn't yet had the opportunity to really explore my new space. So, as soon as the custodian would let me in (I tried at the beginning of August but they hadn't finished painting or cleaning the carpet, so I practically got kicked out!) I began organizing and making things more like home. Even while students came by to say hi during the Back to School Night I was working on getting things just right....now months later I wish I had a day dedicated to working in my classroom to continue to get things right...
September - We lost Grandma Nina over Labor Day weekend. She left us sometime in the middle of the night between Sunday and Monday, making the last day of that weekend rough for all of us. I had to go back to school after fair was over, and Ethan, who had driven out with his girlfriend, had to leave early Monday to make the trek back to Wyoming. As Mom said though, Grandma would have wanted us to keep our plans as is and not make changes, so that's exactly what we did. I didn't take a day off until the end of the month in order to help get ready for a gathering in her honor. I made a video of pictures, and it was fascinating to see pictures of Grandma's childhood and the early years of her and Grandpa's marriage because when Grandpa passed away Grandma didn't share many of those pictures.
October - Another month of travel....I wasn't home for a weekend in October....at all. Most of this was due to 4-H events -- Rallies and Forum were the bulk of things. Of course, the best weekends were spent with kids (silly, silly kids...they were all first timers at Rally!), hanging out and watching them learn and grow in a matter of just two days, but my favorite was Forum weekend because I got to see some of my favoritist friends (who are now engaged!)!! How could I almost forget! This was also the month I found out one of my friends was pregnant but I had to keep things secret almost until Christmas, then I could let things out of the bag. It was a tough one to keep, let me tell ya!
November - November went by way too fast, but the most exciting week was when Ethan and Katie (his girlfriend) came home for Thanksgiving. We had been hearing about Katie for months at this point, had briefly met her during Labor Day Weekend, but that weekend flew by pretty quick-like, so I was excited to actually spend some time with both of them, especially to get to know Katie in person. When I took them back to the airport the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I practically wanted to cry watching them walk through those doors to go back to school :( By the end of the week I had grown to love Katie like a sister, spurring comments like "I need my sister-in-law to sit closer to me!" from Katie, and "You realize you've given her {that's me} the little sister she never had" from Mom to Ethan. He wasn't shocked but not exactly happy about this realization....me on the other hand, am perfectly happy with it :)
December - I'm officially short one tooth...a front tooth at that. My implant process started this month and I had the extraction and post implanted just before Christmas. The worst part has been the recovery process, but that's mostly because they had to do two additional bone grafts. I specifically asked when I made the surgery appointment how long the recovery would be, and the nurse told me most people complain more about the bone graft prior to actual implant surgery more than the implant. Okay, no biggie then because I survived the graft surgery in July just fine and dandy. Ha, wrong! Granted, most people probably don't have so little bone left in their jaw that they need not one, not two, but three bone grafts done for one implant. Let's just say that the next one will be done a little bit differently, that's for certain....
So, in short, 2013 brought some good and bad times. 2014 hopefully won't be quite so bad, and filled with much more good. For starters acceptance into a graduate program would be nice, and then surviving my first semester would be a good second. But things like going on day trips for adventures with my camera, because it certainly didn't get enough use this year!
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