Review of 2014: Part 1

When I saw several bloggers teaming up to sponsor a review of the last year, encouraging bloggers to go back and review their year, several months at a time, I knew I had to participate. 2014 has been such a stressful, crazy, hectic, roller coaster of a year. I found myself with very little time to write. There are many things I wanted to share, but never got the opportunity to. So I'm taking that chance, and joining in the 2014 Review Extravaganza

January

January found us in the middle of one of the coldest winter on record. We had days on end of below zero temperatures, multiple school cancellations for the frigid cold, and became all too familiar with protocols to prevent frozen pipes.

We did our best to cope with the cold. We did indoor ice skating, we had game nights, plenty of evenings around our fireplace.

The cold weather made it possible to walk across the lake, freeze bubbles on the porch, and make ice lantern. Like I said, we dug deep to find the silver lining.

With the intolerable temperatures outdoors, I decided to fully commit to the whole running thing and bought a treadmill.

February

Bug and Monkey continue to compete in chess tournaments, so I spent many Saturdays in junior high cafeterias, cheering them on (but only very quietly, as to not disrupt the games.)

We went skiing several times.

Yes, you can ski in Iowa.

 I got the flu.

I thought winter would never end.

The one time I managed to blog this month, I wrote about one of the biggest struggles I face with parenting.

March

Things really started to pick up in March.  I started studying very seriously for my oral boards and that started to consume my entire life.

Despite the massive amount of book time I was putting in, we still managed to do plenty of fun activities.

We went to Wisconsin Dells for Spring Break. We packed in several days of water slides, laser tag, bowling, and just over all great fun and relaxation.

We tapped our maple tree, which I always look forward to with a ridiculous amount of enthusiasm. We didn't end up getting any maple syrup though, because I forgot about the sap boiling while doing board study and ended up burning all the gallons of beautiful sap we had collected.

I turned 32.

I maintained what little sanity I had left by completing one of my life goals and hiring a cleaning service.

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I may be a little guilty of using this review as an excuse to share many photos that I wouldn't get to post otherwise. But I really enjoyed the chance to sit down, look back, and remember how the first part of the year went. Which is how the entire year went: in a flash.