2011: A Recap

Somewhere during the holidays when I was reading about Christmas recaps on my favorite blogs, I realized that my blogging has been somewhat nonexistent.  So since I've given up on posting on a semi-regular basis, and (coincidentally) Brady and I don't do interesting things all of the time, I'll give you a (hopefully) short recap of 2011.

In January we saw our first big snowfall, and we had a LOT of fun sled riding down my little buddies' grandparents driveway.

February wasn't too interesting.  That is it wasn't interesting until the last day.  On February 28, a F2 tornado tore through our neighborhood.  Luckily it was on the other side and we had no damage, but it was certainly a scary night.  Instead of uploading some depressing photos of the damage, I will upload a picture of our Lab/German Shepherd mix, Buster.

March saw a little more (good) action.  The day after the awful tornado (luckily no one was injured), my best friend Lisa had her precious baby boy, Alex, and my cousin (and another one of my best friends) Shannon had her precious little Connor.  We visited them all the following weekend.  That same weekend we had our very first meeting with our adoption agency.  It was the first step in the process!  I did miss Kara's bridal shower, but she was more than happy that the adoption process was beginning for us.

Alex is on the left, and Connor is on the right.

In April we made our long-awaited trip to visit Jodi, Nathaniel, and Will in Arlington, VA.  Brady and I spent two days in Washington D.C. seeing the sights and spending time with the Rivers.  It was a great week.  (Here is the link to the first day.)  We also celebrated Easter with our families!

May was pretty eventful.  I first watched my nephew and godson, Trevor, make his First Holy Communion.  I cannot describe how proud I was of him.  We also celebrated Kara's bachelorette party!  (However, no photos of that event were posted.  You're welcome, girls.)  One of the coolest things we have ever gotten to do also happened in May.  We went to the Sugarland and Little Big Town show on May 5 as guests of Little Big Town.  It was pretty fun, and I don't think we'll ever forget it!  We also remembered Dean as May 6 would have been his 38th birthday.  And as if that wasn't enough excitement for one month, we attended the Chalk Walk.  It is one of my favorite events that the Jasper Arts Commission puts on, and I love seeing all of the art created on the sidewalks!

June was also full of excitement.  On June 3, Miss Kendall turned six and my Dad turned sixty-five!  We celebrated with a party for our favorite little princess!  June 4th saw my cousin Maurey marry a wonderful gal (and a great friend), Lori!  We had so much fun at the wedding that I wished we could have another reception for them a few months later.  However, the next Saturday, we witnessed the marriage of Brady's cousin, Kara marry a great guy, Matt.  We all stayed at the hotel, so we all had a blast.  I'm so glad we got to be a part of both of these marriages!

In July I did something I never thought I would do...twice.  I went camping over the Fourth of July with Brady, Autumn, and Nick and then again a few weeks later with Brady, my cousin, and her family.  Much to my surprise, I had a great time!  :)

We had our second, and this time all-day, adoption meeting in August.  It was very interesting, and I'm glad it is required by the state.  You can read a recap here.  We also celebrated Denise's birthday (I won't post how old she turned.  You're welcome.) with a trip to Chicago's Pizza in French Lick and then we went to the West Baden Dome to take some pictures.  It was a lot of fun.  I did not do a post about it, so here is a photo from that day that pretty much sums it up:

September brought a day that sometimes I would just like to skip over.  September 4th was the eight year anniversary of my brother Dean's accident that claimed his life.  I remembered him here.  I kind of took an unintentional blogging break because we were preparing for our home study!  We had a scrapbook to make, paperwork to fill out, cleaning to do (thanks for helping, Mom!), and nerves to settle.  We were nervous, but it turns out we were nervous for nothing.  It went great!  Oh, and how could I forget going to see Disney on Ice with Brady, Denise, Tony, and my little buddies.  It was a blast. 

I skipped blogging in October because, honestly, we didn't do anything all that exciting.  We just sort of relaxed since we did nothing but paperwork in the month of September.  But that wasn't saying there wasn't anything exciting happening!  On October 10, I started my new job at National Office Furniture as a Sales Coordinator.  That same week, on October 13, we were officially 'shelved' by the adoption agency, and that means birth mothers can see our book and, hopefully, pick us to parent their child!  As if that wasn't enough excitement, my little buddy Trevor turned nine.  Seriously.  Where did those nine years go?

I returned to blogging (well, I tried at least) in November.  We visited Jodi, Nathaniel, and Will in St. Louis, and we had a blast.  I recapped it here and here.  It was so much fun exploring the city and spending time with family.  The rest of November was spent preparing for Thanksgiving and Fischer family photos.  

We had a blast playing games at Mert and Kenny's house after our Thanksgiving dinner.  It is always fun getting together with the family!  

December came along too quickly!  We started the month off by riding the Polar Express in French Lick.  It was so much fun, and the kids had a blast!  

I highly suggest riding the Polar Express if you ever have a chance.  I cannot express how much fun it was.  

Since December came along so fast, it flew by as well.  The month was spent finishing Christmas shopping and spending time with family and friends.  I won't post a lot of photos from Christmas, but I will post my family photo from Christmas at my parent's house.  

It's still not the same without Dean, Hope, and Ben, but we make the best of it and we still have fun.  After all - it is what they would want us to do!  

Well, that's 2011 in a nutshell.  I'll try to do better with blogging in 2012.  My New Year's resolution was to make a weekly menu and stick to it, and in the second week of the year, so far so good!  (Ask me again in March if I am still doing that good!)  

Miss You, Big Brother

On September 4, 2003 the world lost a great man.  That man would be my brother, Dean. 

Instead of telling you all about what happened that day, I am going to tell you some of my favorite memories of my favorite big brother. 

• I don’t remember how old I was when he bought his first horse, but I remember falling in love with her immediately.  He would occasionally take me riding, and I remember one Saturday or Sunday he took me riding all day long.  It was the next morning that I realized why, in western movies, cowboys always walk bow legged. 
•   Along with the family, Dean was a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan.  We never really went on vacations when I was younger, but I remember going to many Cardinals games.  One game sticks out in particular.  Denise and I were riding with Mom and Dad in their car, and Dean and two of his buddies were riding in Dean’s beloved truck.  We had to stop so Dean could get gas (and we could use the restroom) not too far from St. Louis.  The worker offered us some tickets, and I think Dean and his buddies bought them.  Dad thought he would still be able to get good tickets at the gate.  Well we got to the game and guess who was in standing room only…us.  Mom had brought the binoculars along, so I would look through them and see Ozzie Smith (my all-time favorite player) do his famous round-off back handsprings.  We saw a family leave, so we quickly took their seats.  Keep in mind that when we went to this game, Dean was under the legal drinking age of 21.  ALL of the beer vendors had large buttons on that said something to the effect of “Under 21?  We card!”  Mom was looking through the binoculars and found Dean and his buddies…buying beer.  Guess Busch Stadium needed to work on the whole carding thing. 
• Keeping with the Cardinals theme, in 1998 Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were in the middle of their home run race.  They were trying to break the record of 61 home runs hit in a single season.  It was September 8, 1998 when McGwire hit number 62 breaking Roger Maris’s record.  I think every Cardinals fan can tell you where they watched it.  Mom, Dad, Denise, and I were upstairs in the kitchen (don’t ask why we were sitting around the 13” TV rather than the larger one in the living room), and Dean had just gone downstairs to take a shower.  He went down right as the game went to commercial with McGwire due up in the next inning.  Long story short, McGwire got up to bat and hit #62.  It was a great day to be a Cards fan.  But where was Dean?  Downstairs in the shower.  We yelled, “He did it!” down the staircase and we were told to shut the door so that he could run over to his TV and watch the replay.  We all still laugh so hard when we think of this moment.  It could be my favorite Dean moment ever. 
• Dean only got to know Trevor for the first ten months of Trevor’s life.  In those short ten months, I don’t think anyone loved a child more.  When we would all be around, Dean would practically scoop Trevor out of our arms.  There aren’t very many photos of the two together, but this is the one I always think of.  Dean trying to comfort a crying Trevor.  It is too sweet. 

•  Dean had a habit of trying to annoy me.  I know, a big brother trying to annoy his little sister…unheard of!  Anyway, he sometimes got stuck driving me places and would make up little parodies to songs.  The one I remember the most is Tanya Tucker’s “Two Sparrows in a Hurricane.”  This song was popular when I was younger.  It goes something like this:  Like two sparrows in a hurricane/Trying to find their way.  What Dean would sing was:  Like four cardinals in a tornado/ trying to hide from you.  Nice, Dean. 
• Denise, my older sister, got married the summer before I was in ninth grade.  It is a Dubois County tradition to stop at a bar, to get beverages of course, before going to the reception.  We stopped at The Shamrock and got some drinks.  I had my very first strawberry daiquiri wine cooler that afternoon.  I was just sipping on it and enjoying the ride over.  As we were pulling into the reception, Dean noticed I had quite a bit of my wine cooler in my mug yet.  He told me I needed to drink it because Mom would get mad if she saw that I had it.  So what’s a fourteen year old to do when her big brother is telling her to do something?  I chugged it.  All I remember from that moment was Denise saying, “Oh my God…she’s going to puke later.”  For the record, I didn’t.  Dean had a great time at the wedding….a little too much fun.  Mom and Dad took him to our house that night and I can honestly say I have never been so happy when someone passed out in the middle of the car ride home. 

Those are just some of my favorite memories of my big brother.  I can speak for my whole family when I say we miss him so much every day.  It’s so hard to believe it has been eight years.  Some days it feels like it has been forever that we have talked to him and other days it seems like it was yesterday.  I miss him calling me Motor Mouth, even though I hated when he called me that!

We miss you and love you, big brother.  Keep watching over us.  

Happy Birthday, Dean!

Today would have been Dean's 38th birthday.  To honor that, I have posted the last family photo that we took.  It was at my graduation party in May 2003.  He had his accident in September 2003.  

 

Happy birthday big brother!  We love you and miss you!

Irish Trot

I forgot to add this in my post about St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.  


When my family decided to all participate in the 5K, Denise had the idea to make t-shirts in memory of my brother.  St. Patrick's Day in Ireland was his favorite time of the year.  He always enjoyed going to the Shamrock and spending time with his friends while enjoying a few (or more) green beverages.  When Denise mentioned the idea to me, I was on board and started designing a t-shirt.  We ended up loving the design.  

Here's a picture of Denise, me, Mom, and Dad before the race started.  

 And here is a shot of the backs of our shirts. 

I know he was with each one of us during the race.  We all think of him every day, and we are telling Trevor and Kendall all about him so that they feel as if they know him.  I know he would be very, very proud of the both of them. 

Family Photos

To me Christmas is all about family.  It is about being thankful for what you have.  Although there are a few people missing from my family, I am so thankful for the family I do have.  I can honestly say that I would not be the person that I am today if it weren't for them.  

I am not proud to admit that I used to get annoyed at how many places we would have to go for different Christmas celebrations.  In the past few years, I have come to realize that instead of being annoyed, I should be thankful that I have family and friends to spend the holidays with.  

Every year, after opening gifts at my Mom and Dad's house, we take a family photo.  My brother-in-law, Tony, brings his tripod, and we set the timer.  This year's photo turned out really good.  We can't wait until we hopefully have a few more additions to the family in the future. 

My sister, Denise, and I also take a photo with Mom and Dad each year.  This year's photo also turned out really good.  

I think we're a pretty good looking bunch.  If you look real close between Mom and Dad, you can see my Mom's ornament that has my brother's picture in it.  Even though we knew he was there in spirit, we thought it was really neat that he got in on the family photo too.  

I'll only post one more photo.  Brady and I have the distinction of being Trevor and Kendall's only Aunt and Uncle.  Each year we also take a photo with the two of them.  They truly are two of the best things in my life.  

The holidays are a good time for everyone to sit back and realize what is really important in life.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, to me it's all about family!