Sayonara 2016

When I was googling the spelling of sayonara I learned something interesting.  I knew it meant goodbye but it has a finality to it.  As in, you never want to see it again.  That's kind of the way I feel about this year.  I can say with certainty that this is the hardest year we've had since we got married.  Part of me wants to not print this blog book and pretend this year never happened.  I know a lot of people feel this way for lots of different reasons but it's been a tough one for our family.  We've seen 4 surgeries between us.  I had a hysterectomy over the summer and Matt has had his wisdom teeth out, knee surgery (which had him on crutches and in pain for months before) and then of course the diagnosis of a heart condition and heart surgery that caused stress and worry the whole 2nd half of the year.  On top of health issues, we also had the months long process of having our house on the market.  Only to end up taking it off and staying where we are because it didn't sell and we had too much going on for that added stress.  My siblings also went through some pretty rough stuff this year.  That didn't affect me directly but it did cause stress and worry on top of what we already had personally. 

 

But it's easy to focus on the negative.  As I sit here with 2 days to go in 2016, I've decided it's time to focus on the positive.  Our year started out great with our trip to Lake D'Arbonne State Park

 

We had our Craig family weekend at the deer camp which is one of the best times that I get to spend with my side of the family every year

 

The girls and I made a trip to Austin for Lilli's birthday to see family that we only see about once a year.

 

 

We saw the birth of a new nephew and the news of another that will be here soon.

 

We took our first ever trip as a family of 4 when we went to Grand Isle on Easter Sunday

 

We had a wonderful family weekend at the deer camp again when we celebrated KatieJane turning 3

 

We watched Miss Lilli Leigh become a Kindergarten graduate

 

And spent one of the best weeks of our lives in Gulf Shores with our family

 

Katie started preschool

 

And Lilli was the first 1st Grade Student of the Month

 

Lilli got her first gun as a present from Capn and Yaya.  She's been learning to shoot and got to go hunting with her Daddy several times.

 

Plus scattered throughout the year was plenty of fun family time with the 4 of us and lots of time spent becoming closer to cousins

 

Matt's heart condition and surgery may have been one of the biggest stressors of our year but I also have to put it in this positive category.  We are so fortunate it was caught and we were able to do something to get him better.

And through it all I feel closer to him and stronger as a family because of all we went through.  We may have been through a lot but we did it together!

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2017 hold for us!