Oh, well. Here is our late for the holidays and on time for the New Year family update!
Our family in 2013 traveled a lot (at least within the United States itself). South Dakota, Minnesota (x3), Nebraska (x2), Washington (x2), California (x2) and of course Colorado. Plus we went to Mexico (a first for everyone in our family). We went to the Minnesota Ren Faire twice, the Mall of America too much, stayed at an indoor water park and saw Cirque du Soleil in MN. We finally went to the top of the Space Needle, went to the Glass Museum, hit the Tech Museum, plus Aquarium in Seattle, WA. We even got a front row view of the May Day riots in Seattle (from the safety of our hotel room window). We went to San Diego, hanging out on the beach and eventually visited Disneyland with Grandparents. We went abroad to Mexico where we met many interesting people at Club Med, spent time with my man's side of the family for Opa's 70th birthday and toured the Maya ruins, specifically the Chichen Itza. We moved from South Dakota to Colorado - which is why I can say we visited Nebraska twice. Our first trip to Nebraska was to the best zoo in the US! While our the second trip to Nebraska was just a lot of driving through it to Colorado. Got into Colorado right on time for the floods that got national news attention, plus a lot of phone calls from my mom checking in. Since living in Colorado we have been to many street fairs, farmers markets, the pumpkin patch, the art museum and the science/natural history museum. Both girls have started/continued with instruments. Beezus is playing violin and Ramona has taken up the Cello. We lived in two houses and two apartments this year. I organized one Halloween party and a fourth grade event. Our ducks went to live on a farm (for real). We are down to two cats and one dog.
We continued with old traditions this year and started new ones. Friday movie night is probably one of the most important traditions in our family, both because we like movies, and also because I like ordering out for food. I do not have to cook AND my man gets his pizza.
We tried to stay busy this year and succeeded, maybe we were too busy this year... by the end we were all sick and tired. So I think next year we might travel less and have people travel to us more. And where we will try to keep up doing things on the weekend, we might try to learn to ride bikes and walk to the park, instead of taking weekend trips places. We really want to go camping (and can meet South Dakotans in the Black Hills or Nebraska or take Californians/New Yorkers who travel to us out to do CO camping) and this winter we hope to sled and ice skate a bunch!
For us the new year will jump start with my man getting back surgery for his stenosis. The last six months of this year have been very painful for him and we hope that the surgery which is scheduled in a few weeks will fix that. Beezus got braces right before the holidays, we already see a huge difference and hope to report them being taken off before new years 2015!
Lastly, what I learned about traveling, especially in relation to the typical holiday card update (the list of places we have been that make us "exciting" or whatever) is that the best parts of the year had nothing to do with where we were located. It is neat to list our travels out, just see what we were up too, but the best parts of 2013 were less grandiose than the holiday update.
My best memory of this entire year was on my birthday. My whole family was sitting on a hotel bed in MN watching a cartoon movie: my kids, my baby and my husband eating desserts glued to the TV screen. I practically cried with joy watching my youngest scoot up to the edge of the bed to sit with his sisters. He was obviously so proud to be one of the older kids, he kept looking back at me with a happy grin before going back to the movie and in that moment my family felt complete and perfect. I can travel and move anywhere, but home is my family and the little moments are perfection.
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