2009, in a nutshell

Wow.  2009.  What a year, indeed!

If I look back at my life up to this point, I would have to say that 2009 ranks up there as the year that changed my life, absolutely, forever.  (My mom will laugh when she reads this.)  It is the year in which Topher & I brought forth our amazing & loving & healthy & happy beloved daughter, Stella.  It is the year in which I gave birth & caught with my own two hands this sweetest expression of my & Topher's love I could ever imagine.  It is the year in which I, who at one point said "I'll never", became a mother.  It is the year in which I gave up all that was & all that I had been for the unknown & charted off course into a new and re-defining role.  It is the year in which I had to finally, in some way, grow up.....just a little.  But not to worry, I'm still pretty silly, most of the time.  YessSSS!!!!

That was the BIG one.  But you knew that already.

Among other things, we did A LOT....even on top of having a baby!

Since I didn't even start blogging again until JULY of this year, lets recap a little....just for kicks & posterity.

We rang in the New Year with our best friends the Bailly's & also with Davey & Xtina at Manzanita.  Topher drank enough Tequila to laugh, cry, get in a head lock, get sick & pass out all within the span of about 45 minutes.  I believe there is some pretty disturbing video out there somewhere on the interwebs of the whole event.  We had a blast hanging at the beach with our best friends & family & that is my favorite thing in the world to do.

We played our 6th anniversary show with MarchFourth on March Fourth 2009 at the Bossanova....me while 7 months pregnant.  5 shows in 4 days.  I had to use a chair at a few points,  & almost went into labor (mild contractions from all that bouncing & drumming!) after the second set on the 4th night, but pretty much rocked it other than that!

I know this isn't fun or entertaining, but I managed to refinance all of our properties onto low interest fixed rate loans (whew!), while 7 months pregnant & working full time....yippee!!! No more interest only arms that will adjust & now we are making principal payments on all 4 houses & investment properties.  That is FUN to me!

We attended the best "baby shower" ever, thrown for us by our friends Sarah, Liz & Xtina & made possible by the tremendous community of friends & family we have here in Portland.  I will never forget that & it certainly was the most rocking baby shower in the history of the world!  Words simply cannot describe.

Topher completed the upstairs addition of our new gorgeous bathroom.

YIPPEE!!! Made it much easier (for me not having to go downstairs) to go to the bathroom at all hours of the night & made our home birth experience extremely carefree & luxurious.

I celebrated my 35th birthday,

went to the 10th annual crawfish boil

& had a blessing way all in one weekend,

 2 days before Stella was born.  At least she waited!!!

May 20, 2009 Stella Heitland McGarry was born at 7:57am & we have been smitten with her ever since.

At this point, a lot of visitors were at our house all summer, friends, family, grandparents, meal wheel peeps, stopper-by-ers, weekenders, weekers, etc...it was a summer of non stop party, bbq's & celebration of new life.

In June our best friends Devin, Sarah & Nevi waved bon voyage to go live abroad in Malaysia for 18 months...we miss them dearly, but love that they are living their dreams.

I was able to take the summer off & we did some traveling, once Stella was a few months old.  (2 to be exact)  That was a blast!!!

The road trip (our favorite thing to do) started with OysterFest 2009 & went to all four corners of Oregon.

It was challenging to rough it with a 2 month old at times, but all in all we did really well as a new family & it steeled our skills as parents.

Topher celebrated his 40th Birthday!!!!

And he scored a really sweet mountain bike that a lot of people pitched in on to make his dream come true.  He rides it ALL THE TIME.  Mostly in wheely mode.

When we came back, I started working again, part time from home.  Which has not been easy, to say the least.  Still doing the mortgage business & the chocolate business plus the breastfeeding business & the diaper changing business....the latter two are by far the most time consuming of all.  We have tried to integrate back into MarchFourth on a few occasions, but perhaps that is part of our lives that will just have to be put on hold for now.  We did finally release our 3rd album, which we have been working on for the last 3 years & I think it is our best yet.

We played the CD release party, albeit with a pathetic re-entry into the project.  I (we) simply can't fit all the things back in I was doing before....Stella takes up a big chunk of it now& but I wouldn't have it any other way.

We enrolled Stella in swimming classes & she is now able to dunk all the way underwater holding her breath!  She is doing so well & loves the water so much.  We have decided to enroll her again for the next session so she'll be able to solidify those skills.  Plus its great father~daughter time & mama can get stuff done!

We traveled to Florida for Thanksgiving & for Stella's Sip & See that her NanaCathy threw for her.  Stella flew on a plane for the first time & was great!!!  We definitely had some apprehension about taking her on the plane, but she slept & breastfed up & down, so she never got a congested head, never really fussed & was truly a star.

Stella cut her first teeth!
Stella ate her first solid food!!!

Somehow we got all our christmas shopping done & cards sent out all the while working & finishing (uh, err, working on finishing) the new garage project.

We went to Medford where Stella had her first Christmas & really found her voice.  Ever since she has been blabbing up a storm!

We are now relaxing at an Inn in Pacific City where we are spending our 15th Anniversary Celebration.

We rang in the new year in a place that has been a part of our lives together since we met;

Cape Kiwanda, and now we get to share this place with our newest family member.   Oh, and Inigo of course.

It is really wet & stormy, the waves are huge, and the view of the gray ocean & sky is exactly what we need to clear our energies for the new year ahead of us!

We wrote down our goals & dreams for the next year & sent them as a prayer into the night at midnight last night, with the power of the Blue Moon Eclipse to carry them through.  Stella's first NYE, our 15th & the beginning of a new Decade for us all.

This past year has seen some amazing sweeping changes; the first African American was sworn in as the President of the USA; the king of pop died; texting, twittering & facebooking have become the network communication standard; the US economy & global economy pretty much collapsed & is re-starting itself as we speak, the deepest & most severe recession since the great depression on its way to recovery.  It has been a year of extremes, to say the least.  And one in which much has happened in the blink of an eye.  I know because I have an extra 3000 photos on my hard drive that weren't there in 2008. Most of them of a new little someone you might know.....

Whatever happens in the years to come, 2009 will definitely be a year to remember, to heed & to learn from.  It is these times, the ones that are the most challenging, that define us & make us who we are to become.  What we do with these lessons is up to us.  I don't know about you, but I learned a heckuva lot, & hope to continue to do so for a long time to come.