2008: A Year In Review

When I used to journal (mainly in high school, a bit in college), I would typically do yearly review entries so I could remember what had gone on in my life over the previous year. And I have to admit, sometimes things would get so busy that the review would be my only account of the last few months of the year! I know we're already a few days into 2009, but 2008 was probably the most memorable year of my life so far, so I'm kinda nostalgic about it.

Of course, when I tried to start writing about the beginning of the year, all I remembered was that we made a quick trip to South Bend in February for a whirlwind weekend of wedding planning and that I had a killer cold for 2+ weeks. I'm not sure if it's sweet or sad, but just about every day during lunch, Shaun and I chat in Gmail, so I have a record of the general goings-on of our lives for the past few years (replacing my college form of records - saved AIM chats). So I did a brief perusal of January through March to refresh my memory and realized how quickly I've forgotten how consumed our lives were with wedding planning! That was really a major theme for the first 5 months of the year. No wonder we're so much more relaxed now!

Spring started to get even more interesting - in April my mother-in-law and sister-in-law threw me a surprise bridal shower, and even more surprising, my mom flew in for it! That was a lot of fun. Then in May, my ND friend and matron of honor flew me down to Atlanta for a bachelorette weekend of sorts. We were our typical wild and crazy selves, watching movies and going to the aquarium and botanical gardens...ha. In all seriousness, it was also a very fun weekend!

And then June finally brought the wedding and honeymoon. It still seems surreal when I think back on it. It was amazing to finally have our vision for the wedding day come together and go so smoothly...it was more amazing to have so many of our family and friends together in one of our favorite places...and it was most amazing to finally get to marry my best friend! The ceremony was beautiful and went by in the blink of an eye, and the reception was memorable for many reasons: a tornado warning forcing all of us to the basement for awhile, our drum cake, actually playing drums with 15 or so fellow former members of the Notre Dame Drumline... A honeymoon to the Orlando theme parks and Clearwater Beach, followed by another drummer wedding in Boston, was a pretty good way to cap it off.

The summer flew by much faster than we expected. We really got into the Olympics this year and kind of had withdrawal when they were over. The focus on swimming made me a bit nostalgic for my high school swimming days, and I had fun sharing memories and some "insider" swimming stuff with Shaun. We had a busy end of the summer, with a quick weekend flight to Minnesota to see my family, a Labor Day weekend trip to Washington DC to visit some friends (I love that city!), and a drive to my first Penn State football game.

Fall brought us a little more relaxation, and we really enjoyed following the election - as it seems everyone did this year. We're also fairly big SNL fans, so the extra shows and hilarious impersonations were right up our alley! Without getting too political, I will say we were happy with the results, and we're hopeful that this is a step in the right direction for our country.

We kicked off our first married holiday season with another trip to MN for Thanksgiving - it was fun seeing the usual family members plus 2008's additions to the family: my cousin's son Timmy, and my mom's little Westie/Scottie mix Ruby! Thanks to low airfares, my parents and sister were also able to come to Connecticut for Christmas, so we had a huge combined celebration between Shaun's family and mine. Overwhelming, but we had a blast! And we got the surprise Christmas gift of the first Notre Dame bowl win in almost 15 years!

Well, I'm sure you've heard quite enough - if you read all of that, I'm impressed, lol. I have to admit I was a little bummed about the end of 2008...the year just flew by, and overall it was a great one - 2009 is going to seem kinda boring in comparison. But after a long New Year's weekend of just relaxing with my hubby, I'm thinking I'll be perfectly happy to have some "boring" time.