2011 Winds Down

I have been up for a few hours with baby Laura this morning, and my thoughts are turning to the New Year and all that has happened this year. We had a lovely Christmas, with Emmy getting almost everything she wanted, and baby Laura surprising us with the speed she is moving and developing.  Jeremy and I were happy not to be traveling over Christmas with two children (though we also missed the family we would have seen if we had braved holiday travel).

In a few days, we will go up to Anchorage to see my sister La Rita get married to Tru.  I am so happy to get to share this day with her even though she and Tru are planning a big wedding after he gets back from his deployment to Kuwait.  We did not think we would be able to make it, but I scraped those airline miles together, found a cheap rental car, and made it happen. We are even staying a night in a hotel with a pool, which will overjoy Emmy (and Jeremy)!

So much in life is changing, which is scary, but also exciting.  I will be starting a new job next month designing a program in Alutiiq language and culture at the college, and while I will still be at my current job at the Museum a little bit each week, as well as during the summer, it is a strange feeling to be swept along in this enormous change in my life.  I keep describing it as being "swept along" but really I should give myself more credit - none of this would be happening if I did not think it the absolute best move for my family and myself as well as for the survival of the Alutiiq language.  It is an incredible opportunity that I hope will meet with great success.

This time last year I was 4 or 5 months pregnant with baby Laura.  She is now a bouncing, BIG, baby girl.  Babbling, crawling so fast and trying to pull up on things.  Big sister Emmy has impressed us with how much she has learned this past year, particularly with her participation in preschool.  She is always using her new vocabulary on us and asking what words mean that she doesn't know.  Her favorite subject in school is "arts and crafts."  Yesterday she brought home a bag of paper cuttings from when she visited her grandma's school, and insisted it was her important "paperwork."

By this time next year Emmy will have been in Kindergarten for a semester, and Baby Laura will be Toddler Laura.  I am so excited to hear Laura talk for real, since she has such a loveable and loud personality. I will have been teaching Alutiiq Language for a semester, so I hope that will have gone well.  And Jeremy and I will be 6 months past our 10 year anniversary, which is happening next June.  Which I think will be a good time for a big party.