For those of you looking for your Annual Holiday Flannery Update (as directed in your holiday card or email), here it is! Enjoy its toasty goodness in your freezing climes! (Bwaaaahaaaa! It's like, 75 degrees here!)
And now, without further ado, The Year in Review!
A whole year in Georgia,
the Land of Plenty! We made it! The kids only say "ya'll" once a week and have yet to say "fixin' to", so I think we're gonna make it. (Ribh has even started talking a bit and I do not detect a southern accent, although she does use a strong gibberish dialect.)
This February I began working full time again, initially as the Clinic Staff Supervisor for Life's outpatient clinic, and in August as the Director of Recruitment for Life University. It's been an adventure balancing full time work, mom-dom and all the extra bits and pieces into a well run household. Frankly, it's a work in progress (not working). The benefit of my new position is that occasionally I "have to" travel and then I get to escape the demands of motherhood (casting Brian in the role of Mr. Mom) and I sleep in a
big hotel bed all by myself and take uninterrupted baths and eat food which was not chosen based on its appeal to a three year old.
Brian (Hubby, to regular readers), has been busy with work, developing and teaching new curriculum for clinic education, mentoring, and developing a new position which he will begin next year as the Community Education and Clinic Marketing Coordinator. This means that he will be creating and executing marketing projects to position Life's clinics in the community and creating opportunities and programs to educate patients and prospective patients about the benefits of chiropractic care. And then he will teach all the students to do it. So, he'll stay busy!
Brian has also finished his second go at the Chicago Marathon this fall (3hrs 43 mins and 50 secs) and is training for another marathon in March with a goal to complete his first Ultramarathon (he's planning a
50 miler) this year, and dreams of a
hundred miler in his future. This means he is working on figuring out what foods (real food folks, like pizza and cheese cake!) he can carry and digest while running for ten hours! And, furthermore, he is developing a distance running club and the school and mentoring students as they train to do marathons and such. Needless to say, this training has cut into his golf game, but on the flip side, he has never been more fit.
Gabe is six this year! He is enjoying school and loves to read Captain Underpants books and all things Star Wars. Brian's 30 year old Star Wars action figures are getting to enjoy a second life with the next generation. Just this week Gabe lost his front tooth and now has the best jack-o-lantern grin around. His also gets a lot of attention for his gorgeous long wavy hair.
Hang on to your daughters folks! He's a heartbreaker in the making! (And wicked smart too!)
Quinlan turned three in February. She continues to have a passion for mothering. She mothers dolls, animals, Christmas ornaments, her little sister, her older brother, imaginary creatures, her Papa and anything else she can get to hold still. She also has developed her "Uterine Tracking Device" and helps me find things and put things away where they belong. It's pretty amazing. Gabe had led me to believe that small children are just incapable of understanding how to clean up without being told exactly what to do every step of the way. Quin appears to have innate talent in this arena. Whooo hooo! As Brian say, "Alright! Now there's two of you!"
I took Quin to see the Nutcracker Ballet last week (see photo above). She loved it! (and I loved having girl old enough to do it with!) Now she is attempting to go "on point" and so on. I guess ballet classes will be on the agenda next year.
Ribh Wallis. Man, I don't even know where to start. She is a trip! She's almost two and already has us bamboozled. Ribh appears to have all the strength of will of her mother and her father SQUARED! When she sets out to defy parental dictates she can occasionally out-stubborn Hubby and me. (See previous posts below to detail this point.)
She is also charmingly snuggly, obsessed with butterflies and bugs, capable of eating mountains of food, highly nap resistant, musically inclined, and the most outrageous character we have produced yet! As she begins speaking I'm sure the stories will develop rapidly. Right now our saving grace is the fact that we have no idea what she's taking about 75% of the time.
And finally, the sad news: We lost our good friend and sweet hound, Esste, this October. She was almost 12 years old and quite ill at the end. We miss her terribly and I'll still be looking for her sleeping under a pile of wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Rest in Peace, Boober.
We were sadly didn't see much in the way of visitors this year. I'm telling ya, there's lots of
cool stuff to
do down here! Come and see us! We'll be home sometime this summer, so make an appointment now because we'll be going six ways 'til Tuesday.
Love to All! Happy Holidays!
