While we are happy to see this year come to an end and a new year begin, we have to be thankful for 2009. Of course this year brought us our precious son Tanner. While our life has changed dramatically, we couldn't imagine it any other way! Izabel and Tanner make everyday an adventure and make us a little more thankful for the time we have together.
Kids: Tanner Wayne Ketchledge was born April 8, 2009. We thought Izabel was such an easy baby so we were really worried about getting a difficult second child. Little did we know that Tanner would be the easiest baby i have ever seen. He is pretty much always happy and perfectly content to just sit back and relax! He smiles at everything and we are completely in love with him. He is sitting up, crawling and cruising now. We get "dada" every once in a while but not a lot of talking. Izabel turned two in October and the terrible twos are here! She can be as sweet as can be one minute and the next minute she is screaming and running to her room. She is playing a whole lot more and loves to pretend. She also likes to play with Tanner although he's not really into it as much. She is eating a little better but still pretty picky and very little! She'll grow eventually. Her favorite movie is Finding Nemo and she would sit and watch it over and over if we would let her. Both of our kids are fabulous and they couldn't be more loved!
Work: My job changed quite a bit this year. My best friend at work moved away and I was forced to find some new people to socialize with. We also got a new principal and he has proved himself in many ways. I have always enjoyed my job but this year seems to be a little more fun! Noah has had a very rough year at work. He spent almost 7 months working in the warehouse and is finally back on a truck. He is only making an hourly wage right now which has been tough on all of us. Combined I think we made less this year than we have since I graduated college! The recession has affected us all and hopefully 2010 will bring a little more financial stability.
School: I started working on my master's degree this fall. I am attending Virginia Tech and getting my degree in Career and Technical Education. I will do almost all of my classes online, but a few will be through inter-video conferencing and I will also take some electives at ODU. Noah applied and registered for classes at Strayer University. He will hopefully be able to use the Post 9/11 GI Bill which has some great perks and will pay for 3 years. Strayer uses the quarter system and taking 3 classes a quarter he should be able to finish in just under 3 years. Right now he is looking at a business degree but he is still undecided. I don't care what he gets the degree in I am just incredibly proud of him for finally getting started on this and doing such a great thing for himself and our family! It's certainly going to be tough with both of us working full time and in school but we can do it and everyone will benefit when we're done.
Family: We are fortunate enough to live close to most of my family and we see them all the time. Family gatherings are always fun and we do them quite frequently. Noah's family lives in Vermont but they were able to visit a lot this year with holidays and Tanner's birth as motivation! It's always great to have them around and we wish they lived closer so we could see them more. Due to Tanner being born right at the beginning of the summer we didn't do a lot of traveling this year. A couple weekends up in Atlantic City and our normal week in Massanutten was about it for us. This year we are looking forward to spending spring break in Massanutten and then a week in Vermont this summer. I'm sure we'll manage to make it to Atlantic City some too! We will also be traveling for my job. Noah will be joining me and my students in Orlando this February. I will then take students to New York in March and hopefully Kentucky in April. It makes for a lot of weekends away but it is my favorite part of my job!
Resolutions: I always make resolutions and until this year I have never been able to keep them. This year my resolution was to never go to bed with dishes in the sink. I managed to do it every night except 1, which was just recently. It's been really nice to wake up to clean dishes and a clean kitchen every day. This year my resolutions are to give up soda and coffee. This is a tough one for me that I've tried before but I'm determined this year. I feel better when I'm just drinking water so that is the goal. I want to lose 20 lbs by the end of the year so the water will help with that too. I also want to plan our meals for the week every weekend. This way I will not come home from work and school and have to figure out what's for dinner! My goal is to plan the meals and buy the groceries every weekend and then actually make each meal that week. Of course I'll have to be flexible due to our crazy schedule but hopefully it will make dinnertime a lot easier! Noah's resolution is of course to do well in school and get all of his assignments done. It's been a long time since he was in school so he has quite a bit of adjusting to do. He also said he would try to pick up all his clothes off the floor every night! He has gotten into a terrible habit of just throwing his clothes on his side of the bed. I try to leave them there but eventually I can't take it anymore so I pick them up. I think him picking them up sounds fantastic since I have enough people to pick up after already :) As a family we want to focus on paying off credit cards and getting Izabel in preschool. Hopefully we'll have good things to report as we make it through 2010.
This decade has been very eventful for us and I am a little sad to see it go. I remember what a big deal Y2K was. Since then we have graduated high school, I graduated college, we got married, bought a house, had two kids and are now back in school. It's crazy how fast time flies! At the end of this new decade we will have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. Talk about something that's crazy to think about! As drastically as our lives have changed in the past 10 years I expect them to change just as much in the coming 10. I hope you all had a great 2009 and an even better 2010 and we hope you are as blessed as we are!
This decade has been very eventful for us and I am a little sad to see it go. I remember what a big deal Y2K was. Since then we have graduated high school, I graduated college, we got married, bought a house, had two kids and are now back in school. It's crazy how fast time flies! At the end of this new decade we will have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. Talk about something that's crazy to think about! As drastically as our lives have changed in the past 10 years I expect them to change just as much in the coming 10. I hope you all had a great 2009 and an even better 2010 and we hope you are as blessed as we are!
