The 27th year

Yesterday was  my birthday, although it didn't really feel like it.  The last year has flown by... it seems like it was just last summer.  Looking back on this past year, from where I was a year ago, to where I am now - I have to say this has been one of the hardest periods of my life and the one filled with the most intense changes.  Holy Cow has a lot gone on in this past year!  Some of it good, some of it scary and hard, and some of it down right wonderful.

My 27th year in Review

July

I spent last years birthday celebrating with Matt and my cousins

Two days later, Matt and I went camping and biking with his family for three days

Near the end of the month, I celebrated my 2nd bridal shower - this time with Matt's family. 

Promptly after my shower, I returned to Rochester to work on packing (and no, this is not NEARLY all of my stuff... yet)  On July 30th, I moved to La Crescent.

August

I spent the first several weeks trying to unpack all of my stuff from the basement and straighten up Matt's house. 

I did, however, take a break to travel with my best friend R to New York City and see her get engaged!

Right after I returned from New York City, I turned around and traveled to the Cities to start the new school year.  This year, I changed positions.  I was no longer a teacher, but rather an advisor - like a counselor.  It was a tough transition as the advisory position was a new one, so there was lots of tweaking and figuring things out as we went.

September

Labor Day weekend saw me celebrating my third and final shower with my side of the family family and friends. 

The September was a blur of working long hours and frantically trying to pull everything together for our wedding.  Matt was working a lot of weekend hours, but he was being a really good sport helping me out a lot on his days off.

October
I got married!!!!  It was an awesome, amazing, wonderful day!

The hard work paid off!  Matt and I were married on a beautiful October day.  As everyone said, it all came together in the end, and the day went beautifully.  Our ceremony was beautiful and perfect and the reception was all we could ask for - we had a true party (complete with wedding crashers!) thanks to Matt's favorite band, Brat Pack Radio.

November
November seemed to stay busy as we settled into our house as a married couple and celebrated our first holiday as a married couple.  We continued our tradition of being lightbulbs in the Holidazzle parade on Thanksgiving weekend as well.  We also got a chance to celebrate Matt's birthday (he doesn't like big birthday celebrations, so we had a quiet dinner out, just the two of us)

December
December seemed to fly by as well, in preparation of the Holidays.  Matt and I did sneak in a visit to Rotary Lights to relive getting engaged.  :)  And saw the Canadian Pacific Holiday train when it stopped in our town.

We had our many Holiday celebrations with our families and tried to keep as many of our family traditions alive as we could. 

January
Matt worked... End of Story.  He worked a LOT - as in 90 plus hours a week.  It was insane.  He worked 21 straight days to start the month of January.  He would go to work at 9 in the morning and not return until midnight or two am.

February
We got a reward for all of Matt's work!  For one blissful week, right after Valentine's day, we got in some nice quality time when we were finally able to go on our honeymoon.  We went for a cruise in the Caribbean and it was so nice and relaxing and I loved the time with Matt and his undivided attention.  I hope that we can do something like it again sometime soon!

March

We thought winter was going to be over, but it seemed to stick around - basically snowing every Monday.  We made the best of things and went cross country skiing one weekend in March. 

April
April started off very nice, with a week off work for Spring Break.  I got to visit friends and took care of some appointments.  I traveled with Matt and his boss to his boss's hometown for his band's reunion, which was an interesting trip to say the least.
April, however, is no longer a nice month in my book, as it is also the scariest day of my life, when I had to call 911 and my husband was taken to the hospital.  Eventually he was diagnosed as having suffered a stroke and was released from the hospital five days later.

May
Thankfully Matt did not suffer physical limitations from his stroke, but he did have some memory problems and had a slow recovery, once we returned home.  May passed in a blur as I tried to catch up on being gone from school and attempted to close out the school year and complete my end of year work tasks.  Matt was home from work and had some follow up therapy appointments that also kept me busy.  I will be forever grateful for both of our families and my friends who supported us during this very difficult time, especially Matt's dad who would come each day to sit with Matt while I was working.

June
June saw Matt cleared to drive and return to work.  Very quickly he was back to a nearly unrestricted schedule.  He was able to help his company out at all of their big events in June (which means he worked every weekend in June).  So of course, my picture is of the two of us at an event.  On the plus side, the event was a Chicago and Daughtry concert and it was pretty awesome!

June also saw Matt and I make our 3rd annual camping trip to Whitewater state park - it's Matt's favorite park and he loves it.  I enjoy the time together, but this year the bugs and some rain got the better of me.  But for the most part we did have good weather and had fun hiking and exploring. 

July again
And here we are again - July.  We had a great time hosting our badminton tournament on the 4th of July and now we're back to my birthday.  Matt was working (of course) all day yesterday at the last St. Johns block party.  But I did have a good day (and make myself one awesome cake!)

So there you have it - my 27th year - sorry for such a long post!  But as you can see, a lot happened!  I moved, changed positions at work, got married, and went through a medical emergency concerning my husband.
While I may not have been ready to celebrate my birthday yesterday, I sure hope that next year is a little calmer and simpler and I can just slow down and enjoy life with my husband!