In 2018...

... so many things happened! It was a wonderful year with a few dreadful things thrown in for good measure. Maybe I'll get those out of the way first.

... two literal nightmares of mine came true: 1) being horribly bitten by bedbugs in our Florida vacation with my husband's family (I took tons of photos to document the numerous bites to legs, arms, and, most of all, back of neck, our rental house was free in the end, 6K back to my MIL. My husband thinks my suffering was worth it, oh well...). 2) having a small flood in our house with water pouring and going everywhere right before more guests arrived (we already had my parents, niece and nephew here).

Other than these two unfortunate things (and the fact that my BIL had to lose his leg to cancer, which is not my story to tell, but I wanted to mention here), it was a great, VERY eventful year.

... I went on two trips with my youngest son in the Spring semester, to Florida for his robotics tournament, and to the Outer Banks for his class trip.

... our youngest graduated from 8th grade and my parents were here to celebrate with us (soon after they flew to Indonesia to visit my brother and his family!).

... we went on a splendid cross-country trip to the Canadian Rockies to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. (This was a bucket list destination for me. It was AMAZING! I have photos on Facebook if you want to be FB friends. Hi Karen!

... our youngest son started high school and the oldest is in the sweet stages of beginning his first significant relationship. ;-) 

... my brother and his family came to visit for the very first time! He and his wife had visited us back in June 2006 before moving to China and he had visited quickly back in 2010, but he had promised he'd finally visit me after he had children, and he fulfilled the promise. His kids are 7 and 5.

... we had Christmas at our house with my whole family, plus my sister-in-law's parents and her brother and family. We had a wonderful time, in spite of the house having been messed up by the flood.

2018 was a great year! My 3 year contract was renewed until 2022 and I was awarded a 5K grant to teach my dream class this semester (about music). I don't think 2019 can top any of that, but I'm sure it'll be good too. More about it in another post.