2012: The Year of Transformations

2012 was AWESOME!

In fact, I'm thrilled to go back to my life's regular pattern -- with the exception of 2008-2009, every year of my life has been better than the year before. Seriously. I know that it probably won't be like that forever, but that's OK.

The transformations I'm talking about in the title are two: getting a "real" job that I love, love, love! (my first full time job EVER, at 41!) and getting rid of eyeglasses after my eye-surgery. Both life-changing events.

And the highlight of the year was the trips: South Africa for 10 days, another life-changing experience, and Brazil in July-August.

We're ending the year with this current trip, first to Nashville to visit my aunt and now in Texas, visiting  dear friends and family (brother-in-law, SIL, nephew, niece; K's cousin and her boyfriend; and K's second cousin and his family).

We stayed at the house of two dear friends who moved away from our town last summer and it was lovely to just talk and talk to them. We also visited a long-time friend we hadn't seen in two years (my brother's classmate from 5th-8th grade) and her family, including her parents and her sister whom I hadn't seen in maybe 18 years.

We came to K's 2nd cousin's house this afternoon and we had a great meal at this awesome Tex-Mex place, Papasito's Cantina. Being a vegetarian paid off BIG time, since our meal was way cheaper than our cousins'! ;)

Two days of traveling lay ahead and we're tired just thinking about it, but hopefully it won't be a bad trip back. I will probably be blogging form the road, so you should hear from me again soon.