Year in Review

Well, I'm back.  Last year I unceremoniously gave up blogging for lots of reasons and for no reason in particular.  Now that we've vacated "the mainland," I'm finding it SO HARD to keep all of my people up to date on what's happening in our lives.  Not that that many people care, but for those who do, I've been a real slacker.

I'm excited to share our fabulous Hawaiian adventures with everyone, but before I begin with our new life out here in paradise, please allow me to walk you through the last year.  Let's be honest, this is more for me than for you...for posterity's sake.

In September  I started my new job at CCC tutoring students in the Writing Center.  Love, love, loved it!  It wasn't exactly advising, but I really got to help my students, and it felt great.  Evie was in school 4 days each week and completely thrived.  Her verbal development these days is off.the.charts. and I completely credit her school (MDO/daycare) with this.  Also in September, we went to the Air Force ball and got to dress up in our fancy clothes.  Doesn't Nick look handsome in mess dress?!

 AND we drove to Canyon Lake/San Antonio to celebrate cousin Lilah's first birthday!  While we were there, we visited Sea World with Grammy and Pops.  So fun!

In October we celebrated Halloween at the Cannon AFB fall festival and found out that we were moving to Hawaii in May.  Whew!  Evie chose to be a princess for Halloween and had a great time with our friends, the Hicks, at the carnival while I got to go for a ride on a C-130 and hang out the back in midair.

 Lighting is terrible, but that's me with the NM dirt far, far below. And here is EC at the carnival

 Also in October, we brought home this sweet girl, Macy, who is named after a bomb patrol dog Nick worked with in Afghanistan who was KIA during his tour there.

We kicked off November by celebrating my big 3-0 at Baylor Homecoming.  This is my only picture.

 We spent lots of November prepping our house to go on the market.  We wanted to sell ASAP because the Clovis market was not exactly booming.  It was quite a project.  We did, however, take some time out to celebrate Thanksgiving!  Here is sweet E ready for the party at MDO.

And here we are together at her party.  Love her pilgrim hat!

 This pic was taken on Thanksgiving.  Ugh, I don't miss all that red dirt!

 We began December by celebrating EC's second birthday with a little party.  Emphasis on little.

In the middle of the month we had open houses and house showings.  Then we finished up with a holiday Tour de Tejas.  We made stops in Waco and Canyon Lake, and had a blast!

Evie thought all the presents were really exciting.
In early January we accepted an offer on our house that required us to close on March 1st.  That's when life really got crazy because, also in January, we learned that Evie would become...

a BIG SISTER in October.  She can't wait!

January and February were a blur of packing and preparing for several months in flux.  We sent a big shipment of stuff to Hawaii on a slow boat, a small shipment of stuff to Hawaii on a (presumably faster) boat, set Nick up in a bachelor pad for two months, and shipped Evie, Finlay, Macy, and me off to Waco for March and April.

March 1st we closed on our house.  We were so glad to wash our hands of Clovis for good!  Over the next two months, EC and I enjoyed being around family, but we really missed Nick!

EC loved her little car at Nana and Grandad's house.

 She was there to cheer the Baylor Bears on to victory several times in basketball...

 Nick visited for Easter

 Jason's Deli after church every Sunday was a highlight.

 E had a blast at a few baseball games too.

 We got to welcome two new cousins, Liam (shown) and Wyatt.  So sweet!

 And we had a super fun Austin weekend with Grammy, Pops, Aunt Andrea, Uncle Drew, and Wyatt.  E loved the train in Zilker Park!

On May 1st we drove to DFW (it took 2 cars to get us and all our stuff up there), and flew to our new home in Hawaii.  We were soooo fortunate to have friends here to pick us up at the airport and help us acclimate.  We spent the month of May living in the Navy Lodge on Ford Island in a hotel suite.  That was an adventure!  On May 29th, however, we moved into our actual house on Hickam AFB.  It's smaller than we're used to, for sure, but Hickam is an AMAZING place to live!  We can walk to the O-Club, to the beach, to the doctor's office, to dinner.  We can even see the ships sailing into Pearl Harbor while watching an F-22 blaze by overhead.  So cool.

Here is E on her first Hawaiian morning!  

 She was crashed out in the car by 9:30 am.  The time adjustment is wicked!

 Our first trip to Hickam Beach

 Now she's a beach pro.

 She LOVED the tiki torches at night outside the lodge.

 Dog Park Beach - our fav.

 Our new place!

 Lunchtime with Daddy isn't complete without a lei!

Finally, in late June, Macy and Finlay joined us!  Hawaii has extremely strict quarantine requirements so Mom and Dad were kind enough to let them crash in Waco until they could head to Oahu.  Thanks, parents!

And thanks, United Petsafe, for getting our pups to us safe and sound.  

That should bring you up to speed!  I'm sure there's much that I forgot or neglected to mention.  One huge missing piece is all of our friends.  To enumerate everything they've done for us and everything they've meant to us this past year would make this post waaaay too long.  Our Clovis friendships were the one thing that helped us survive the past three years.  We miss all our friends more than I can even put into words, and you know you all have an open invitation to visit Oahu!  

Check back again soon, as I'll try to post some regular updates from here on out.  Thanks for reading!