Closing the books on 2009

How do you summarize a whole year into one blog entry? Well, I thought I'd give it a go! We have had an absolutely fantastic year and lots of things have happened, so here is a quick (read: really long) summary before we close the books on 2009 in 11 days:

January
In the beginning of the year, the anticipation over the upcoming addition to our family was high and obviously grew and grew daily. The days and weeks literally flew by, we just got more and more excited and the notion became more and more real to us: Our lives were about to change forever. Other than that; January, traditionally is kick-off month for my company, and this year kick-off was held in a luxury hotel outside of Athens, Greece. So, off we went! Shaena went sightseeing by herself and I worked and spent most of my time schmoozing with work people, as you do. In January, we also found out that I had won the Diamond Club trip competition at work, so yay! Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!

February
By now we had started gearing up for baby for real by doing some serious purchasing and organizing. We did a trip to IKEA, and soon we had converted a corner of our bedroom to a cute little nursery, complete with Ethan’s cot, storage, a few toys, bedding, blankets and towels, and we also received gifts and care packages from Sweden and Canada. Speaking of Sweden; I also did another business trip to Stockholm during the second half of the month. While I was gone for work, Shaena and the girls had a nice, well deserved day at the spa. In the end of the month we were off to Mexico for the most amazing trip ever! Ever!

March
We spent a week in Cabo San Lucas with my company, and did we ever get spoilt! The Diamond Club trip to Mexico was completely out of this world and we have never been so looked after and pampered; the overabundance of luxury, gifts, activities and waiting staff was almost ridiculous and I think our perception of traveling may have gotten just a tad skewed for the next few weeks afterwards. It is very easy to get used to that standard of traveling and being waited on hand and foot, but don’t worry; we are back with our feet on solid ground now!

April
This was probably one of the slower months of this year; we didn’t do any crazy traveling and didn’t exhaust ourselves with any projects. The main focus of the month was probably my apartment in Stockholm which we put up for sale, so that was a bit of a nail biter. It did sell though, so in June we were no longer property owners in Sweden and that felt really good. Being landlords while abroad is a nervous venture.

May
T minus 1 month and we were bursting (no pun intended) with excitement over what was to come in June. My brother John came to visit and we had a really nice weekend with him. Other than that, we were planning and booking visitors for the summer and enjoyed the spring sun here in the Burgh.

June
As you can imagine, the whole month of June was just one long consecutive build-up towards the expected delivery date in the end of the month. We were super excited and also very ready for the pregnancy to be over so that we would get to meet our little son. Grandma Michelle arrived mid-month with Great grandpa Jean Noel in tow and set up shop in her rented flat that was going to be ground zero for all visiting family. On the evening of the 30th of June he finally arrived, our fantastic adorable little son, Ethan Noel. The wait was over and our new life as parents could begin!

July
Two words: family bonanza! July was crazy hectic and amazing at the same time. Lots of people coming and going, lots of entries in our guest book, and at the same time we had to adjust and learn how to best take care of our little one. I think we got the hang of it pretty quickly, but every day is a new learning experience with a baby. All the help and support we got was definitely appreciated though, and with all our visitors from near and far, there was never a lack of ready and willing babysitters, so Shaena and I could get away for a few hours and go see a movie or whatever just to recharge our batteries.

August
Besides from being a crazy festival-month here in Edinburgh, the month of August felt like a continuation of July, we still had visitors, lots of people who wanted to meet the little guy, and we received so many cards, messages and gifts so this blog turned into a ‘thank-you-blog’. It felt like every time we updated our page, we had a few more people to say thank you to and we are forever grateful for what everyone did for us; the help and support, the visits from people, the flowers, the cards and the gifts for Ethan meant so much to us! Grandma Michelle closed her B&B in the middle of the month and moved back to Canada, and after that we were on our own with Ethan and could slowly start to build on new everyday routines as a little family unit.

September
September was another exciting month! The month started off with a quick business trip to Paris, and two weekends after, we were invited to attend Jen & Mike’s wedding up in St Andrews. Just before this, I also got a last minute invitation to attend a workshop/meeting week in Atlanta with my company which I couldn’t say no to, so off I went, and I had a great time over there, but in order to make it back in time for the wedding I had to fly overnight back home to Scotland. I think I had about an hour or two to spare after coming home before we were off again, driving up to St Andrews for the ceremony and the reception afterwards. Let me tell you; that was one long day and night!

October
The girl crew felt that a girl’s weekend away was long overdue, so they booked themselves a weekend in Orlaith’s hometown Balina, Ireland. Only about 50% of the crew actually made it to Balina though, the rest got refused at the airport, but for Shaena and Orlaith who made it, it was a fabulous time. What else? Well, I said bye-bye to my manager Ron who moved back to the US, Cara & Brad from Winnipeg came by to visit us as they were driving around Scotland on their honeymoon, poor Tanky had to have emergency surgery, and I managed to squeeze in another work trip to Sweden.

November
Canada baby! Ethan’s first ever time on an airplane was a long haul flight to Toronto followed by a whirlwind time in Trenton, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Winnipeg and Grand Forks. Amongst so many other things, we got to: Go up the CN Tower, have a nice dinner with friends in Toronto, see a KISS concert and an AHL ice hockey game, go for a date night with our favourite ever couple, host an open house, tour a prison, go for a road trip, and eat all of our favourite junk food. One thing is for sure; we do know how to cram a lot of activities into a relatively short period of time! Straight after Canada, I jetted off to Sweden for business again, so quite the hectic month.

December
As per usual, December is all about the build up for Christmas and all about shopping and being Christmassy, no exception for us there. The difference with us is just that we cannot keep Christmas under wraps until the actual day, so we have been giving each other Christmas gifts all through the month. We also had a really nice visit from Grandma Gertrud and Roland. Somehow we also got roped into hosting a massive Christmas pot-luck for 14 people on Christmas Eve, so will be interesting to see how that’ll pan out. I am sure we’ll have a jolly good time! The more the merrier, I guess! Last thing on the agenda for this year (for obvious reasons) will be a New Years Eve party at Piers and Lesley’s place. Really looking forward to that as well!

All in all 2009 was an amazing year and we would like to say a huge thank you to all our family and friends for being truly amazing people and for being so very supportive and helpful in and around the most important event of our lives!