Thursday, January 19, 2012

2011 In Review

I know this is late, but I wanted to do a "year in review" post! We called it our year of changes. We went from students living in Provo to Texan "real adults" with a baby and a real job. Our year looked like this:


January
We found out we were expecting a BOY! I was still super sick, began my last semester at BYU, taught a ton, and started studying like crazy for my orals. Cam also started his last semester and took good care of his sickly wife.


February
I finally started feeling a bit better! Cam worked hard in school, I studied constantly, and we took a fun trip to Vegas with Cam's family to watch BYU play.


March
I passed both my orals! This was such an accomplishment for me; there were many times I literally didn't think I would pass. It felt so good to have them go so well. This is the month when Cam and I really started to wonder if it was the right thing for us to go to Palo Alto and for him to work for Ernst & Young. It was a really stressful time for Cam as he started looking around for other options.

April
I went on a super fun cruise with my mom, dad, Abby, and a bunch of my dad's family. It was SO FUN. The only downside was that Cam wasn't there. We stopped in Cabo and Puerto Vallarta. It was so nice to relax after all that studying!

While I was on the cruise, Cam got an offer to work for Dell. This was such a blessing! It really was an answer to our prayers. We knew it was the right thing, so we planned on moving to Austin, TX in the fall.

We both graduated with our Masters Degrees!

We moved out of our Provo apartment, our first home together, and moved to my Grandparents' basement in Holladay, UT. This was such a special time for us to spend time with them and get to know them better. They were so generous to let us stay there rent free.


May
Cam began studying for his CMA (Certified Managerial Accountant) and CPA tests! This was his major summer project. He passed the CMA first, and took 3 out of the 4 tests of the CPA the proceeding months. (He'll take the fourth one sometime soon.) He passed them all with flying colors! I am so proud of him--he had to juggle so much with having a new baby (that didn't sleep) and an emotional, needy wife.  I spent this month nesting and such. Our new doctor (the same doctor that delivered me!) was much more on the cautious side. He was pretty concerned about Andy's small size, so I spent the month going to lots of non stress tests and ultrasounds!


June
Cam went to Hawaii to sell security systems for a couple weeks. We were nervous the baby would come early. I think he got home the day I turned 38 weeks? Here I am at 38 weeks:
Then, on Monday, June 20, we experienced the birth of our beautiful little boy!


July
This month was spent trying to adjust to life with a colicky baby. We didn't sleep much. The month was also spent trying to help Andy learn how to nurse. It was such a relief when we could finally nurse confidently by the beginning of August!


August
Our month of celebrations! Cam and I both turned 26 and we celebrated our two year anniversary.

We also took a super fun trip to Jackson Hole with my family.

September
We began the month by blessing Andy on Sept. 4 in my parents' ward in Bountiful.


Then came the big move to Texas! All within a few days we moved to Round Rock, scrambled to find some furniture, and Cam started his new job. We feel so blessed. We love our apartment, our new friends here, and Cam loves his job.

October
I don't know if any main events really happened this month. We continued to adjust to Texas, our new home, Cam working, and me being a stay-at-home mom. Also, we took a Saturday trip to College Station to visit Cam's cousin. So fun!


November
We hosted Cam's family and cousin's family for Thanksgiving. It was a blast! We had so much showing them the Austin sights.




December
Most of this month was spent in Utah enjoying the Christmas season with family.

We had such a wonderful year, filled with incredible blessings from our Heavenly Father. We look forward to all that 2012 will bring!

3 comments:

  1. You are so photogenic Steph. You all look so good in these pictures, your cute family. I loved this! It's fun seeing you pregnant.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's amazing how much change a year can bring!

    ReplyDelete