Married to Ginger: turks and caicos

You know you're a subpar blogger when you steal most of your ideas from other blogs. I got this one from Kat's blog - you may remember her from yesterday's post: married to Jon's cousin, mother to the adorable Elliot, superior blogger to me.

Here are the top things that made me happy in 2013. If you were on our Christmas card list, you can probably already guess a few of these. :)

1. Jon started a new job. This was the scariest change of 2013. I'll spare you the details of how "Big Law" works, but it wasn't an easy decision and it wasn't without risk, but we felt it was the right decision. I'm happy to report that so far, so good. God is good all the time.

2. We bought a house...not that you would have noticed from my obsessive blogging about it.

3. We celebrated 5 years of marriage. You can read more about what it's really like to be married to Ginger here, but the condensed version is that it's been 5 really great years.

4. We learned how to cook lobsters and finally put those skills to use on Christmas day.

5. We started our ballparks of America tour. I have no idea how long it will take us to visit every MLB stadium in America, but I'm looking forward to the adventure. We had quite a few inspirations for this idea: 1) I've visited 48 states. Since that milestone is almost complete, we needed a new challenge. 2) My mom got Jon a map of all the MLB ballparks for his 30th birthday. It came with handy pins to mark visited ballparks - all the more reason to start crossing them off our list. 3) We love baseball. 4) We love to travel. 5) I love hot dogs.

6. Megan turned 30. I'm not sure she'd call it a highlight, but she's in my top 5 favorite people (along with the Ginger, Mom, Dad & both Aarons - Rodgers and Kendrick - they count as one since they have the same first name) and celebrating with her was the most fun. Also, Aaron (Kendrick, not Rodgers) was baptized that Sunday. It was really special to be there for both big events.

7. Turks & Caicos. Self-explanatory why this was a favorite of 2013.

8. Going to a Packers game in Baltimore. I relish any opportunity to wear my cheesehead in public, and we won. Success.

9. We caught the end of cherry blossom season when the slightest wind gently blows the blossoms off the trees. Snowing cherry blossoms is a new favorite - right up there with munchkin cats.

10. We went to see Show Boat at the Kennedy Center exactly 15 years after I saw it in with my family at the Kennedy Center during my first visit to D.C. One of those really weird moments where life comes full circle.

11. I learned how to arrange flowers. I was so proud of my first effort (and we all know that pride cometh before the fall) that I haven't dared a second attempt.

Wow. I didn't realize we had packed so many fun memories into one year until I finished writing this post. And the list could be so much longer. If that's not a great exercise in remembering God's blessings, I don't know what is!

I'm sitting by the fire right now, fighting a cold, texting with Jon (he's at the store and has apparently instituted a new system of texting me photos of the items on his list so I can approve or disapprove), enjoying my Christmas tree, waiting for football to start, and watching some light snow fall outside. While I wouldn't trade this (except for the cold - I'd be happy to get rid of that), it's vastly different from where we were just over a week ago.

If the snowy weather isn't your thing, I highly recommend you get yourself on a plane and head to Turks & Caicos. There isn't much to tell about our vacation - we did what everyone does at the beach. We ate great food (I'm hoping to write about the food in a separate post), we relaxed by the pool, we got sandy at the beach, we snorkeled, we read books, we played games, we woke up with the sun rise, we fell asleep before 10, we took naps, we explored, we drove on the left side of the road (and survived!), we lost a wallet (Dad), we found a wallet, we laughed, we had a great time. The weather was pretty perfect (we just had 1 rainy day), the island wasn't crowded, and the house we rented was fantastic.