2008 - A Year in Review

Wow...we're at the end of another year! I can't believe how fast the time goes by. My mom tells me that the older you get the faster it goes - if that's the case I'm going to start missing whole months because they fly by so quickly!

So, I thought I'd do a post recounting the events of this year...I'm not sure how many noteworthy events I have to recount, but I'm pulling out my calendar to take a look and see what I have to talk about!

I started my New Year in 2008 with a Zumba class through the City of Henderson Parks and Rec. It was so funny!! I took the class with a group from work, and our instructor was a crack up! He was a belly dancer at heart, but really just liked to watch himself in the mirror! What a hoot! We had fun participating though.

In February Jimmy and I participated in the library Read and Run for your Health 5K run. We didn't actually run the whole thing, but we finished it! That felt really good! Here we are with cousins, DJ & Stacey.




Also, at the end of February and into March Elizabeth and I went to Winnemucca, NV for the Summer Reading library conference. Winnemucca is a very small town. We had fun though. We took a plane from Vegas to Reno, then a cab from the airport to the train station, and a train from Reno to Winnemucca, then called a cab again to get to our motel. The train station in Winnemucca was really just a bench - kind of like a bus stop. When we arrived in Winnemucca it was night and the cab driver said he had to drop a kid off at his grandma's house, so we had to wait a little bit. It was pretty cold out and we saw a horse tied up at a bar across the way - how funny! Here's Elizabeth at the train station on the way out of Winnemucca - you can't really tell, but we were freezing!! She's looking very cosmopolitan in this shot.


While we were there we found a little Mexican restaurant called Chihuahuas - it had THE BEST Mexican food. In the two days we were there we ate there twice! Here's me and my Chihuahua posing out front. Elizabeth's mom, Caryl, has Chihuahua radar and picked this one up for me so I wouldn't miss my real one while I was on my trip!

April is a month of birthdays for Jimmy and me! Jimmy turned 30 this year - wow, what an old man! I took off from work early on his birthday and didn't tell him - instead I surprised him with a pineapple upsidedown cake! He had given me a bad time about it for ages - I had baked one for a coworker's birthday when we lived in San Diego and he didn't get to eat any since I had to take it to work. I hadn't heard the end of that one until I finally baked him his own! He got a Juno for his birthday which was the next step in his music hobby - it's a synthesizer/keyboard/thing. A couple weeks later I turned 29. We went out to dinner at China Grill in the Mandalay Bay and I got a beautiful ring for my birthday. I also took the last week in April off work and indulged in a day at the spa! Bliss!

May began my long-standing programming run at the library with Valentino Crespo, Master Butler Extraordinaire! He's great. He comes to the library monthly now to do presentations on various subjects (etiquette, shoe shining, packing, etc.) and ends each class by teaching the steps to a dance. He's great fun and I really enjoy working with him and his crew!

In June AJ graduated from Foothill High School and a group of us went to see Video Games Live! I've been dating Jimmy since AJ was about eight years old, so I've really seen him grow up! I can't believe he's a college student now - how crazy!

We spent the July 4th weekend in Brianhead, UT with my family. We stayed with Uncle Rance and Aunt Kathy in their cabin, but my parents, Ashley & Kelly, and Corey, Jarvus & the Girls all went up too! It was a lot of fun to just get away for a couple of days and still spend the time with family. You can see an earlier post to get more info on that trip! Also in July I had a teen program at the library where I did Henna tattoos on the attendees. It was so much fun and I'm hooked. Here's a sample of my work. I have since purchased my own stuff and love doing henna tattoos.





August was somewhat quiet - we finished up summer reading program at work and Elizabeth and I went to our second annual Daughtry concert.

In September Jimmy and I took our big trip to Korea! His mom and dad went too. I had a fabulous time and hope to be able to go again someday. It was so neat to meet the rest of Jimmy's family and spend that time with them. I have a previous post with more photos and stories from the trip - check it out!

In October Jimmy and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary. Our trip to Korea in September was our gift to each other. Also in October were the pumpkin carving contest, pink wig picnic, and the 6th Annual Halloween Extravaganza at work!

November proved to be a busy month at work! I got a promotion and am now the Head of the Youth Services Department at the Gibson Branch. I also manned the department with help from only Seth (19 hours a week) and Rita (8 hours a week) for two weeks! Whew! I was glad when November was over! We also threw a Baby Shower for Ashley (and attended her other one in Utah). And, of course, had a lovely Thanksgiving!

December brought a massage to work out November's kinks and gear up for the holiday madness! We attended my holiday party at work, Christmas dinner at Grandma's (the week before) and Christmas Eve celebrations at Corey & Jarvus's house, as well as at Crystal and Troy's house! We had a lovely Christmas day - and spent time with both of our families. We also had a Christmas Adventure...it was a dark and stormy night - really! I looked outside because it had been lightening and thundering and raining and what did I see - but our fence had blown to pieces. So, Jimmy and I bundle up and go outside to fix it, well in the process of going out the back door, we bumped the pole and it came down on our slider door and we were locked out! Yikes! In a hurricane! So, Crystal and Troy showed up and I said we could just go to my mom's house and get our spare key, but Jimmy was able to jiggle the door and the pole fell out of place and we made it back in! How exciting!

I hope everyone had a fabulous 2008 and here's looking forward to an even more spectacular 2009!! Happy New Year!!