2016 In Review

Well, this has been quite the year!

I wouldn't say that this year was a roller coaster so much as a speeding train. It felt very full and very busy. We grew, we became more settled in our church and life in Tallahassee, just in time to pack up and move away from it for a year. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year as we return and readjust. Will we pronounce all our "W's" as "V"? Time will tell!

I feel a little guilty for how our life probably looks on this blog. Oh of course you know we aren't perfect and that we don't just have fun, but I can totally see how it might look like that. We did a LOT of travelling this year. We did it as inexpensively as we could, and thankfully earlier in the year we had air miles to help us out and Carson got some conferences funded so I was able to tag along, but wow, what a year on the go. With the exception of June, I think we went somewhere every single month this year. 

We got to see some neat places in the US and got to spend quality time with some pretty fantastic people. It's good that we got those times in, because we moved to Germany in August and we no longer had the freedom to drive to see family over the weekend. Once there though, we did have the freedom to see new places. We visited a total of five countries (Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Bulgaria and Spain) and quite a few cities in Germany (Frankfurt, Marburg, Heidelberg, Göttingen, Kassel, Rüdesheim, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Cologne, Dortmund, Hamburg, Düsseldorf).

We hope that 2017 is a great year also. I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store. I think we'll see some new cities and countries, and I think it will be another busy year. We've got our hopes up about what it will hold... can't wait to see!

For now though, here's a recap of what we did in 2016 with lots of links to specific posts!

January

We go to Taco Bell every New Year's Day as part of a weird pact we made in 2011

We rang in 2016 on our couch

We went to Maryland for MLK weekend and had a great (albeit freezing) time!

Took on some refinishing projects and rearranged our living room

Carson was sick a lot and Lindsay worried about him getting pneumonia but he was stubborn about going to the doctor.

February

Tampa's Lowery Park zoo

Valentine's Day

Leap Day - I feel like since we get an extra day once every four years, it should really just go ahead and be a day that's free from work. Who's with me?

The Deer Cousins Birthday Weekend: We went to the zoo and IKEA in Tampa with Morgan, Caleb, Grayson and Sydney.

March

Governer's Palace in Williamsburg

Lindsay turned 27, which seems a lot closer to 30 than previously thought.

We went to Colonial Williamsburg for a conference

Easter

FSU High Flying Circus

Even though Florida winters are mild, this month stated pretty chilly. Last March we went to the beach, but we had far fewer warm days.
We found out that Carson was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and we were moving to Germany!

April

Carabelle Beach

We went to the beach! Since we found out about Germany, we realized we needed to make the most of our Florida beaches!

I went to St. Petersburg/Clearwater to see Christina and Caleb
We went to a local art festival

We also spent a lot of time with Josh and Christina this month. We got together on Wednesdays as a community group, but the group sort of split up and it was just the Bays and the Kings, so we had an unofficial weekly standing date from mid-April until we were jerks and left for Germany.

May

Top of the Rock in New York City

We took an anniversary trip to New York City!

We celebrated six years of marriage. This apparently sounds like a very big number because it gets a "wow, SIX?" response from a lot of people.

Carson went to a conference in Austin and another in Chicago

Morgan, Grayson and Mom all visited

Carson aced his first comprehensive exam!
I refinished our dresser by myself and got Carson to update our coffee table

June

Lafayette Heritage Park 

We did our best to get more steps in this month! We took lots of walks and a few hikes

We celebrated Christina's 30th!

We did some packing and prep for our move

Carson passed his second comprehensive exam! 

July

Anastasia Beach in St. Augustine

Granddaddy and Grandmama's dock in Beaufort

July was a fun month! 

Went camping in St Augustine for the weekend of the 4th

Lindsay was part of the second annual "Writing Class Girls" reunion, in St Pete this year

Did our very best to do as much as we could with people while also packing and working

We packed up in Tallahassee and spent the last few days of the month in Beaufort

August

Far too many bags, but ready for adventure

Philosopher's Walk in Heidelberg

At the castle in Salzburg

Spent the first few days of the month in Beaufort and then in Atlanta with family!
We moved to Germany!
We spent most of August in Marburg, Germany for language classes but on the weekends, we definitely got to explore!

We traveled to Heidelberg for a day

We took a long weekend in Salzburg and in Werfen, Austria

We went to Frankfurt for Museumsuferfest
Carson took his final comprehensive exam and set a department record for speed! He is now officially a PhD Candidate and I'm so proud!

September

Rudesheim

Wiesbaden

We went to Gottingen for a day

We went to the Kassel wasserspiele for a day
We took a boat ride on the Rhine and explored Rudesheim with the Fulbright
We explored Mainz und Wiesbaden

We moved to Münster, Germany for Carson's research under his Fulbright grant
Basically the second we moved to Munster the weather decided to stay cold for good. This was expected but I was still a little sad about that.

October

On the bank of the Rhine in Cologne

Tower of London

Hurricane Matthew hit the East Coast and knocked up Grandmama and Granddaddy's dock pretty badly. More than that, many lives were lost in Haiti and homes were destroyed in the Southeast.
We visited Ben in Cologne

Jordyn, Ben and Annelyse all came to stay with us in Munster for various reasons and it was fun seeing them!
We went to London, England as a short trip
We carved a white pumpkin for Halloween 

November

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia

Seven Rila Lakes in the Rila Mountains

Ben and Julianne came to explore Munster for the day

We traveled to Bulgaria for Thanksgiving weekend (Sofia, Plovdiv, Rila Mountains)

December

Park Guell in Barcelona

We explored Munster's Christmas Markets

Lindsay went to Hamburg (Day 1, Day 2)
We had four days in Spain (Barcelona, Montserrat, La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell)
Carson turned 30 in Spain and then we explored Dusseldorf!

We spent Christmas in Germany

June Pictures

Carson had to present a paper at a conference he couldn't physically attend, so he set this up in the classics library at school. He texted me this picture, and I'm not really sure if he had it on timer and took it or if someone took it for him, but I'm glad it's documented. Please take note of his get up - business on top, shorts and sneakers on the bottom. 

I've been going for walks sometimes in the evenings by myself at the park and I love it. I play a podcast and just walk and run stairs and it's very relaxing. 

People use the bank parking lot at night to go to bars and restaurants, so I guess someone had an after party one night because we arrived at work to see this.

Wanted to do something fun for the front door, so I painted this $2 round board, glued some ribbon to it, and done. I used a chalk marker to write with and then painted over it, because I wasn't sure if the chalk marker would run or rub off.

Can't win 'em all: along with our salmon and salad, we had some tator tots.

Make your own pizza with the Kings!

We went for a walk around Cascades at night.

Beach day! I had a day off work and it was sunny, so we headed out to St George.

A former roommate of mine tagged me in a post about popcorn making, because we used to make it on the stove all the time in college. So I started craving popcorn.

June 11 marked four years since we lost our first baby. FOUR! He or she would have been due in January of 2013, so this garnet birthstone would have been his or hers.

I FaceTimed with Jillian, Gracie and Wren one day. The girls are getting so big!

Went to a going away party for a coworker at Midtown Caboose. It was as good as people said it would be, but the service was SLOW. Would still go back. 

I worked a week at another branch and that was also slow.

We learned how to play Ticket to Ride, thanks to our friends the Kings. It's the Europe edition and we loved it. We met with them for dinner a few times this month and have played it three times!

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Yep, that would put me to sleep too. 

So, packing is going well. This was a different day than the above picture but Carson never stops wearing that one shirt.

We had the Kings over for dinner one night and threw some things on the grill. A very summery - and tasty - dinner!

Pretty sunset at Cascades Park

The "running late to work" look. I asked Carson to take a picture of my hair so I could see it. He thought it looked too messy and I said that was the point... let's hope I pulled it off like it was intentional. 

Finally joined the library. We've been meaning to since we moved here.

Oops.

Dinner Carson made. Love our little $5 Craigslist grill.

I went to Downtown Thomasville with Christina one afternoon to explore. It was a short but fun afternoon!

The blood drive truck was parked next to our car after church and I have never donated before and always felt a little guilty about that, because I have a universal donor type. So I suggested that we donate. They stuck my right arm and it wasn't going fast enough so they had to switch to my left. It hurt, but didn't bruise too much afterward. I really really hate needles so I sort of regretted doing this as I was doing it, but now I'm glad, and I think I won't be too afraid to donate again. 

Definitely didn't want to go anywhere afterward though because I looked ridiculous.

Went to Goodwill looking for suitcases (success, surprisingly) and found this gem. Gee, wonder why it ended up at a thrift store?

I went to SkyZone, a trampoline park in Tallahassee, with some of my coworkers. We had points to use for work and so this is what we chose to do. It was more of a workout than we expected, and everyone was sore the next day, but it was really fun too!

Afterward we still had money to use so we went to BJs and had dinner. The pizooki was the best part. 

So much rain this month!

I just thought this sign was worded funny.

Pitaria - amazing. 

Oh, what a deal!