2009 What a Year

2009 has been an interesting, frustrating and amazing year for us. As with most people, this year has been a struggle. A lot of lay-offs in the states, the housing market went in the toilet and well, it was just plain hard at times. However, we also had some positive things happen for us. Not only just for 2009, but for the years to come. We moved to a beautiful part of the world, Mike started a new journey in his career, we made some new friends and reconnected to some old ones. I think all in all it's been a good year. Play along as we list some high (or low) points of the year and show some pictures. (I promise it gets better after April!!!)

January: We embarked on 2009 thinking THIS was going to be our year. This would be the year we would pay off all our debts (we were close too), this would be the year for much happiness and joy. I am never making a prediction again.

February: Marty was diagnosed with Diabetes and Mike was laid off from Microsoft. To be fair, we knew the lay-off was coming. We actually knew for several months. After going through a few, you can see the handwriting on the wall when most around you don't.

March: Marty had his tonsils and adenoids removed. In hopes that sleep apnea was the cause of his seizures. They have tremendously dropped and as a matter of fact the last known seizure was in July right after we first came to NZ. I posted this picture on Facebook. It's not the best because it's from my phone, but out of all the pics on Facebook this one got the most comments.

The tag line on Facebook read "Marty's tonsils...looks like meatballs."

April: I was laid off from Microsoft. Mike started talking about two job opportunities. One in New Zealand and one in China. China would have been a good move for Mike, but it quickly got the nay nay from me. To be perfectly honest, I didn't believe New Zealand was going to happen and stayed in denial until that day in May that he ran upstairs and told me they were in the pay negotiating phase. Then the panic attacks came in waves.

May: Mike signed contracts with Media Design School and the running about to get all of the paperwork filled out began. That was a lot of work, not hard just a lot of paperwork. I decided to start a blog about our move, but thought it best to hold off on starting it until we were actually approved to move.

June: We put the house up for sale (still hasn't sold) and made a mad dash back home to Texas to visit with family. We brought all of the NZ books we had bought with us to show everyone where we were going and about the country. That was also the last month I saw my babies Cooper and Daisy. I am sure they are much happier being spoiled by my Mom, but I sure do miss them.

July: We got the approval to move to New Zealand. WOOOHOOO!! We had a going away party, the movers came and we were on a plane in under two weeks.

August: We moved into our house, the kids started school and they went to their first endo appointment. We also finally had internet. Almost a month of me stealing wireless from a local McDonald's!!!

September: Started The DiabeticDuo and became involved with Diabetes Youth Auckland.

October: We finally celebrated Kelsey's birthday, Mike went on his first business trip to Wellington and my Mom came to visit us. We also learned how to understand the all too common "yeah no" conversations the Kiwi like to have.

November: Celebrated a very subdued Thanksgiving and took a road trip to the Glow Worm Caves.

December: Experienced our first warm Christmas.

We also traveled to quite a few locations around Auckland. We visited Muriwai, Auckland Domain, Motat, Kelly Tarltons, Glow Worm Caves, Piahia, and the Harbour.

While I am still not going to make any predictions, I will say that we are looking forward to 2010. I know we will continue to make new friends, visit more beautiful places and face more challenges. We are ready to take 2010 on and know it offers us hope and excitement. Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope everyone had a Wonderful Holiday and a Merry Christmas. I am sitting at the kitchen table on a cool night drinking tea and listening to the sounds of Christmas....the kids next door have been screaming and fighting for about 30 minutes. Oh the joys of Christmas. We had a wonderful and quiet Christmas this year. I am happy we were even able to have one. There for a while I really didn't think the kids were going to get more than a stocking. But MDS came through and hired me again for about two weeks to do some odd jobs. Thanks to them, we were able to give our kids some smiles this holiday. As you can guess we have quite a few pictures to show you.

The first set of pictures are from the MDS gift exchange. Everyone drew names out of a hat again and then exchanged fun gifts for under $10.

The Marketing and Academic Directors decided to dress like elves while handing out the gifts. It was an amazing site seeing them both in tights. WOOT.

Liz, the CEO, decided she would take the wrapping paper from her gift and dress David in what Mike called "the kilt of shame". The party was a lot of fun and they even gave me a couple boxes of scorched almonds. Amazingly wonderful chocolate covered almonds. One box was almost gone before we got home.

A couple of days before Christmas we went back downtown to do a harbour tour and walk around. The harbour area is pretty cool. The third picture below is where the NZ Americas Cup team house their boats.

As we walked around the city we came across this restaurant. The name got Mike and I giggling...but the sign in the window just sent us into fits.

Then off to Sky City to get a closer look at the tower. They don't do a whole lot of decorating for the Holidays here in New Zealand. Well, not like in the US....but this area was beautiful. We sat and ate a Christmas lunch. It was the first time I had Christmas Pudding. It was Yum.

The second picture is of some kind of volcano awareness thing that two guys were acting out on Queen Street. If you click on the picture you can see the guy in the protection suit (looks like he is wrapped in aluminum foil) and then the hand of a guy who is popping out of the top of the volcano. He is supposed to be lava (one would assume). We couldn't hear what he was saying in the bull horn, but we stood and watched anyhow.

In the third picture above, you can get some sense of how high the bridge is in the background. When we took the harbour cruise we went under that bridge and was able to watch people bungee jumping. In the first picture you can see the pod that they jump from. The second and third picture you can see the guy taking his leap of faith. Mike missed the water touch, but the jumpers head went into the water. He was yelling "WOOOOOOHOOOOO" all the way down. See, that term is not only used by southerners who are missing teeth. It is a commonly used term all over the world for "Hell Yeah, this is fun!!".

During the harbour tour we went by the Naval Base. See the third picture? That's the entire Naval Fleet for New Zealand.

Christmas gifts!! The kids took both grandparents money and spent it at the mall before the big day. Marty spent all of his money in one place. He bought a gadget that makes all kinds of cool sound effects while he plays his electric guitar. Kelsey went to several stores and bought herself some much needed summer clothes and a cow mug. (Nanny thinks the mug is ugly and teases her about it!!) The kids got movies in their stockings. The Land of the Lost, much funnier than I expected. It did not B(uh)low as I thought it would. Kelsey got Interview with a Vampire. Good Lord that was a horrible movie, but she loved it. They both were given quite a few art gifts, iTunes cards (that are NZ..which means we have to open a new account), and odds and ends. Mike got glue. WOOT.

Both Mike and I will be back next week with our "Year in Review" post.