Christmas Recap

One of the fine folks i follow on twitter did a post like this and I thought it a great idea so I'm copying the idea. Also i promised a lot of posts about various things and have failed miserably so this is a nice way to recap.

A lot of people send out letters for christmas. Usually they recap the past year and everything that has happened in their family. Amanda and I don't do that, or didn't. It seems like a recap blog post is more appropriate considering the times and author.

2008 was utterly insane for us. Really, psycho crazy loco. You know that list psychologists put out of the most stressful things people go through, we hit probably half of them. Kinda crazy. Fortunately is was the good half.

We started the year moving. In January of last year we moved from Pine Ridge to Bay Club. I guess you could say this apartment has been our first real place together. Amanda lived with me at Pine Ridge for a couple months (like.. 6) but it always had an air of "my" place. She very slowly put out random candles and other girly stuff but it remained my apartment and in a way she felt like she just lived there. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic she lived there but that's kinda how it was.

In January just about everyone came to Cleveland and helped us move. Wyatt, Sara, Joe, my dad and mary, Nick, Amanda's Family, my Uncle Gary and Aunt Sue a lot of people (sorry if i missed anyone.) It was a good move and a good time was had by all once the work was done. Little did anyone know there were bigger things to come.

About a week or two later, on the beach we had our first date, in a crazy lake county snow storm, I proposed to Amanda and she accepted. One of the best days of my life so far (to be sure) but it would be followed 9ish months later by a better one.

But first, not a week after that little Lola little bitch came into our lives. We got lola from a family off Craigslist at the end of January and she has been both a blessing and a royal pain in the ass, but we both love her to death and are glad she's around. I suppose that's how dogs are.

About two months after that I put in my notice at Progressive, my fine employer of almost three years and opted to move on to work for Paragon. Progressive was good to me, a great first job and as far as career advancement goes did a lot to guide me, but my interest lie elsewhere and now I find myself happier with work than ever before. My grandpa used to say "If a man can live to work rather than work to live he is blessed indeed." and right now that's how I feel. Sure i like to cut our early ocassionally but I continuously feel challenged, engaged and appreciated. Hopefully that continues for a while to come.

The next few months were spent planning, and planning, and planning. Seriously I talked about it a lot on this blog but until you (or if you have) planned a wedding you have no idea.

And that leads to the wedding. Now the last few posts have been about that so I won't go into much detail but let's just say it went off better than we could have ever imagined. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we still hear great stories today.

The last thing that is bringing our wonderful year to a close is the process of purchasing our first home. On either Jan 2nd or Jan 6th (its a bit up in the air at the moment) we will be the proud owners of a beautiful house in Eastlake, OH. Lola will have a yard to play in, I will have my office / man cave, and Amanda will have, well, just about everything else.

2008 has been a great year. Possibly the best one ever for us. Hopefully it was just as amazing for you and yours.

Merry Christmas friends,

Josh