I love celebrating the New Year. I love looking back at the previous year and reminiscing about the great moments, the trials, the failures, the successes, and then looking ahead at how the coming year will be different. It feels like a fresh start, and I love it.
We celebrated New Years Eve at home and had a great time. We made Dijouzas for dinner (my favorite) and had sparkling grape juice, put Genni to bed early (she'd had a rough day) and Brandon and I were able to sit and talk about the past year.
This year was a big one for us. It was one year ago on January 2nd that we found out we were pregnant. We had just returned home to Boston from our Christmas vacation in North Carolina. While in North Carolina, we had decided to visit New Orleans to better make the decision of whether or not to accept the job offer Brandon had received. We enjoyed our visit much more than we had anticipated and were starting to lean towards accepting. I'd had suspicions that I might be pregnant, but really didn't think I was. I had decided that I would go get a pregnancy test the following day though, just to be sure. It was Sunday morning and we were getting ready for church. I decided to check the bathroom and just make sure I didn't have a pregnancy test already. And I did. So, without saying anything to Brandon (that's how confident I was that I was not pregnant), I took the test. I continued getting ready and almost forgot to check it. But then I glanced over at it on my way out of the bathroom and was shocked to see the word "pregnant." Without a "not" in front of it. I took a few moments to try to wrap my head around the idea, failed, and decided to just go tell Brandon. This is how that conversation went:
"Hey Brandon? You might want to sit down."
"Why?"
"Because...I'm pregnant!"
No response. I showed him the proof and say it again. Finally he says, "What?!"
We hugged and just looked at each other, trying to wrap our heads around this new information. The rest is a bit of a blur. I just remember us realizing that we needed to get back to getting ready for church because our ride would be there to pick us up at any moment and deciding that we would talk about it more when we got home. The shock wore off before that though. In fact, it wore off about 20 minutes into sacrament meeting when the first speaker referenced parenting. I'll never forget that moment. We looked at each other and both started smiling (the kind of smile that feels too big for your face). Neither of us could stop smiling, I'm sure we looked ridiculous. Sitting through church was torture after that because I had realized I was going to be mom in a matter of months, and I wanted to get home and call my mom and dad and sisters. (Also, I was fasting, so I was especially hungry. I did not complete my fast that day.) That was the day we found out about Genni. Within the week we made the decision to accept the job in New Orleans, and just like that our lives took a couple of big turns that were both exciting and unexpected.
The rest of the year revolved around those two bits of news. Pregnancy consumed my life for 9 months, and then Genevieve arrived and continued to consume my life (much more pleasant on this side of it though). Brandon graduated from law school, studied for and took the bar, and began his career in Oil and Gas Law in New Orleans.
It was an amazing year for us, and we are so grateful for the wonderful blessings we've been given and for the great support and strength we've found through our family and friends.
