2010 in review

my favorite photo of 2010

time for my annual year-in-review [see 2008 and 2009 and decide for yourself where 2010 fits in the coolness scale]. 2010 was a good year but i feel like i just got used to writing the correct date, so hopefully i'll adjust more quickly to 2011.

here's what went down in 2010:

• started out the year pregnant and slowly losing the whole constant-nausea thing [hooray!] -- found out in january we were having a BOY, which subsequently caused me to freak out though today i am quite pleased with the whole male child thing
• posted bump pictures here, here, and here
  
• i quit my day job and started a new career as a public relations consultant
  
• we saw billy joel + elton john in concert, dream come true
• my brother had an emergency appendectomy but eventually left for his mission in mexico
  
• b crashed his car :( but we upgraded!
  
• we moved to denver, colorado for b's summer internship, i became a librarian, we did fun things to explore our new home & met a bunch of new friends
• after waiting an extra 8 days, baby jack decided to finally make his arrival by being born on my 26th birthday
• we moved back to utah when jack was only one month old so b could start his final year of MBA school
• baby jack was blessed at church, modeled his awesome abs, produced the cutest laugh EVER and dressed up like a jack-o-lantern
  
• we celebrated four awesome years of marriage
• jack's first christmas included a trip to temple square, a seat on santa's lap, a visit to california and a great christmas day
• i traveled to anaheim, rancho cucamonga, phoenix
• b traveled to san francisco, seattle, columbus, moab, bentonville, omaha, los angeles, south bend, chicago, dallas
  
• together, we traveled to los angeles, rancho cucamonga x2, fort collins, denver, colorado springs, evergreen and back to salt lake city
  

i think what i'll always remember most about 2010 is that it was the year i became a mom. i've spent most of the past five-and-a-half months stressing out about jack, wondering if i'm doing this whole mothering thing right, worrying about sleep patterns and poop schedules and pumping and eating and growth spurts and everything else -- but also falling head over heels in love with my cute little boy and delighting at every smile, milestone, burp, sneeze and squawk. i used to think that if i just worked hard enough, read enough, tried hard enough i could be a perfect mom with a perfect baby on a perfect schedule...but i learned really quickly that this is not realistic and if i kept it up i'd only give myself a nervous breakdown. 2010 taught me to go with the flow, try to be flexible [one of my bigger struggles, ha], say my prayers and just do my best -- and guess what? things still worked out. jack survived, i survived, and we're still moving forward. so, thanks to this year -- i reached a pretty good milestone of my own.

happy new year friends! here's to a great 2011.