2011 has been filled with ups and downs and twists and turns. But there are a few moments that stand out in my mind. I hope they help you conjure up the good times in your year and make you look forward to many more memories to come.
The Best: 2011
Boarding a double-decker bus on crisp spring morning in Newcastle, UK laden with enough luggage to make me look ridiculous. Then watching my husband slowly disappear as I rounded the corner towards the train station and home. It was only then through the cold window panes of that stinky bus that I realized just how much I would miss Newcastle. I then cried, making me look even more ridiculous. Thankfully no one on the bus cared. Stranger things have happened in Newcastle.
Our summer was peppered with friends, family, laughs and adventures. It would be hard to capture the amazingness of it all by sharing a favorite moment. Rather it was an entire month of moments, each beautiful and exciting in its own way. At home with the people I love and the places I know, I find renewal and rejuvenation. Maybe Winnie the Pooh said it best: ”It was a familiar spot to Winnie the Pooh for he would often wander there doing nothing in particular, and thinking nothing in particular. But sometimes on these excursions, something took his mind off of nothing.”
There is a little corner of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, right before the security line, where I said goodbye to my sister. This little corner, right next to the escalator, has seen many comings and goings. But this was especially bittersweet. I was going to Grenada. She was going to Ventura, California on a mission for our church for 18 months. After five hugs (or was it 9?) we said goodbye and I boarded a plane.
It’s an overdone song that seems to be a staple for Fourth of July and New Years Eve. But Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” makes me sob like a baby. Once you have giggled with the children of Grenada, seen them run across a soccer field just to give you a hug or heard others of those children sing “Fireworks”, then that song would get you too. Listen to the words. Think about kids that come from nothing. Grab the tissues.
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Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming. We just kept swimming. Right down into the middle of the Caribbean Sea and a few flamboyant fishies. Floating through the coral, kelp and making friends with a sea slug were certainly unforgettable moments.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing my husband smile. And his grin was ear to ear when he grabbed the rope behind a boat in the Caribbean and took off on a wakeboard.
Monday, December 5th was a day that will live in infamy. It was the dreaded Pathology test at St. George’s University. For some it was the titillating, tempting end to a long and hard seven moths of bleary-eyed, masochistic med school. For others, it was just the beginning of taking the class over again. As the minutes ticked by that morning, I prayed. Finally, the hour had come and my sweet husband came home and collapsed on the couch. He wasn’t crying. I let out a sigh of relief and knew that we had passed Pathology.
Gigantor was bigger than I remembered. At our wedding we propped up a cardboard cutout of my brother – it was a 6-foot Mit Romney frame with a familiar face pasted on to it. I thought it was tall. It was nothing compared to the man I found when I came home. Brendan had been gone for two years serving his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. During that time, I got married, moved away and didn’t get to see him come home. This Christmas, the best gift I received was laughing again with my little brother, gigantor.
May you each have a happy New Year filled with more ups than downs, more family and friends and more adventures.
