Before I really turn my attention to 2020 and all the adventures to come – of which I am hoping there will be many – I have to take a moment to look back on everything that 2019 brought.  There was a lot of stress last year, but also a lot of joy and fun.  Life has felt very hard recently, which makes the moments of togetherness and peace all the sweeter.

January.  I started the year off – almost, anyway – with sand between my toes, watching the sunrise in Miami.  (Okay, that was January 4.)  I had a business trip to Florida that kept me busy with work, but I managed to slip away for the beach run I’d promised myself.  That was the best weather of the month!  Back at home, we managed to get out for one (very chilly) hike at Great Falls with Zan and Paul – somehow, despite hiking together all the time in Buffalo, that was the first time we’d made it out for a D.C.-area hike.  (And the last.  Must correct that.)  And we had a big blizzard mid-month, so the kids got the fun of rocketing down the icy slides at the playground and landing in a big fluffy pile of snow.

February.  After New Year’s excitement wore down, we settled into a quiet rhythm in February.  I got back into bread-baking and made several excellent loaves of sourdough sandwich bread, and discovered that focaccia is pretty simple!  My book club was delighted with that.  We were still busy, though.  The kids’ social schedule was pretty hectic in February, between birthday parties and Valentine’s Day festivities at school (as a class mom in kindergarten, I had responsibilities there, too).

March.  What used to be my least-favorite month is now one of my top months of the year, because it’s all about celebrating our sweet little guy.  His birthday wish was to “go to Mount Vernon dressed as Alexander Hamilton” – what a kid, right?  So that’s what we did.  Actually, the whole month seemed like a parade of cosplay, because we dressed the kids up again in their Colonial costumes and took them to Alexandria history days at the Lee-Fendall House Museum, where they were the hit of the party.

April.  Flowerrrrrrrrrrrs, flowers flowers flowers flowers flowers!  Spring in the D.C. area is glorious and I always miss out on the fun because of allergies, ugh.  I switched from Claritin to Allegra this year and felt a little better (still not great, but better) and managed to enjoy some of our favorite spring traditions – like hiking the bluebell loop trail at Bull Run Regional Park, visiting Mount Vernon to see the trees in bloom, and picking daffodils at Burnside Farms.  We got our container garden tidied up and planted, too, and looked forward to another summer of battling the squirrels over the cherry tomatoes.

May.  Summer starts early in Virginia, and we welcomed it in with a long weekend getaway to Virginia Beach – one of our happiest places.  We got in a solid few days of time with Rebecca and Eric, which is always cherished and never enough.  They moved to Florida in the fall, so this was likely our last trip to VB; it just won’t be the same without them.  The rest of May was busy, as usual.  In between the usual school-work-birthday circuit, we worked in our garden and hit the river for the first kayaking of the season – yes!

June.  Summer fun in full swing!  We celebrated Steve with a homemade strawberry pancake breakfast on Father’s Day, and gifted him with baseball tickets for the following weekend.  Our Nats lost to the Braves – booooooo – but we ate veggie dogs and the kids had an alarming amount of cotton candy, so it was a success.  At the end of the month, my parents arrived to watch the kids and Steve and I escaped for…

July.  The first parents-only getaway in years!  Steve and I spent a little more than a week in the Pacific Northwest – kayaking the San Juan Islands (and spotting ORCAS!) and then exploring Seattle.  It was wonderful and refreshing to be away together; we used to love to travel as a couple, and while we still enjoy traveling, it’s undeniably a lot easier without the kids.  We had a fabulous time, and not a day goes by that I don’t wish myself back to the San Juans.  The rest of July was the usual busy whirl.  The kids were settled into camp life, and we spent the weekends bouncing between the garden, the neighborhood pool, and the river.

August.  We loaded up our vacations into the summer this year, and I didn’t hate it!  In August we skipped town again for our family vacation, which we have done over Peanut’s birthday week for the past few years.  It was just our immediate family this year, and we realized that it was actually the first time we’d ever gone away for a week as a foursome without any other friends or relatives.  We went to Duck, NC, but the kids thought we were in Antigua.  What they don’t know won’t kill them, right?

September.  Staring down the barrel of what was going to be a very busy month in October, I tried to make the most of my September with plenty of family time.  I did lose one weekend to my firm’s all-attorney retreat in Indianapolis, but the rest of the month was dedicated – whenever I wasn’t working – to back-to-school and family fun.  We drove out to Burnside Farms again and Peanut led us through a sunflower maze, then Nugget and I went down an inflatable slide a bunch of times – what a rush.

October.  My favorite month of the year was a total downer in 2019; I worked almost non-stop.  There were several weekends on which my only break was when I took the kids to their weekly swimming lessons at the local rec center.  (Peanut is turning into a fish, but Nugget kind of hates swim class.)  I had a weeklong trip to Dallas for a very high-stress, high-stakes project, and the rest of the month was ridiculously full and busy.  It wasn’t all bad – Halloween was fun, as always, and my parents actually made it down to us to see the festivities this time!  And we got out to the Shenandoah Valley for a birthday hike for yours truly, which was a wonderful and relaxing day.  AND I had the fun of staying up WAY too late on quite a few nights, watching my Nats home-run their way to their World Series victory – YES!

November.  I started the month watching the Commissioner’s Trophy make its way down Constitution Avenue, and finished it hiking in the Albany Pine Bush with Steve and the little dude, so November was good.  And we celebrated Steve’s birthday!  Very glad he’s in the world.

December.  Last month was another hectic one, between work and some school drama that we are still trying to work through.  Sparkle spirit felt like it was in shorter supply than usual.  But we did our best to conjure up the Christmas magic – updated our traditional holiday decoration walk for kiddo attention spans; had brunch with friends; hosted a playdate; baked cookies; and piled up gifts under the tree to close out the month.  Merry, merry!

And now – onward and upward.  I have a lot of plans for 2020, and if they all come to fruition (fingers crossed) this will be a banner year.  I’m ready for quite a few changes and I am quietly working toward several of them already.  Looking back, the theme of 2019 was – busy, hectic, stressed, but trying.  Here’s hoping all that hard work and striving pays off this year.