2011 in Review

This year has been a busy one for us. We've traveled to Ethiopia, I've accepted a new job, we've learned a lot about our hearts and our God, been broken and built back up and I think I've experienced every emotion in the book. Our year in review, as told through our blog.

In the beginning of January, I was grateful for my blessings as I remembered the car accident I had been involved in the year before. Also in January, as we were preparing for our trip to Ethiopia, I reflected on the idea of hope and what it means to others.

February was an amazing month for us. I spent a few days in New Orleans at the American Physical Therapy conference, then met up with Nick in DC and took off for Ethiopia. Nick addressed the question of whether we were going on a 'mission trip' and I talked about some of our projects in Ethiopia, while being broken, just as I had prayed for.

Our return to the US came in March, along with a post on some of the bumps that can be (and were, in our case) encountered during our trip.

Nick and I were so, so lucky to have had the chance to attend the Empowered to Connect conference, sponsored by Show Hope with Karyn Purvis (it was so good, we're going back this year). I talked about some of the changes that had happened at Kebeb Tsehay, an orphanage that holds so many memories for me and feels like home.

Gladney published an article I wrote about some of the projects from our most recent trip to Ethiopia in their May newsletter. Nick was the volunteer coordinator for the first annual Northern Colorado River Run for Orphans 5K event, I had an embarrassing hilarious moment and we focused some energy on our house.

June (and the whole summer, really) were really hard months for me. I was going on six or so months of working 6-7 days per week and I was overwhelmed about the idea of our daughter growing up in an orphanage.

July. Well obviously I didn't have anything to say to the blog world during the month of July. I told you it was a really hard summer.

I tried to make up for it in August by giving you a quick rundown of our summer and then our basement flooded. 

A conversation with a friend in September allowed for a much needed breakthrough for me as I worked through all these emotions that had been building up and overflowed this summer. This was followed up by a visit from some of my very best college friends.

Although I didn't talk about it on my blog, I accepted a new position as a clinical manager and physical therapist at the end of October.

November kicked off our biggest fundraiser to date, Nick introduced you to our love story and I told you about what we do in Ethiopia.

So far this month, in December, we revealed how we finished off our week with Give1Save1, we shared our video and we learned a little bit more of what we want Christmas to mean to us.

Of course we had many other fun (and some not so fun) adventures along the way this year. I'm looking forward to what (and hopefully, who) 2012 will bring for our family. Thanks for being apart of our lives.