Whew, 2012 has been QUITE the year for us!  Seriously, this is one for the record books so I thought I’d share our year in *droid* pictures!

January did not start off very well as I had TWO root canals in one week that were so bad they had to drill into my bone in order to anesthetize me.  The drill site got infected and I couldn’t eat a single thing besides those slim-fast drinks for three weeks.  It hurt to even get the straw in my mouth!  One day I was particularly frustrated at how long my recovery was taking, and my sweet husband came home that night with a bottle of wine, flowers, and a plan to help me relax and get better.  Can you see that our dinner consisted of slim-fast and wine?!  Probably not the BEST idea in retrospect but it sure was nice to drink something other than fake milkshake!

February always means Greek Conference and CNU rocked it in 2012 bringing a THIRD of the entire conference!  It was such a celebration of the work the Lord had been doing in our community.  Two CNU students gave their lives to Him that weekend! 

Later that month we got to join Zach’s parents for a few days in the Bahamas!  It was SO nice to get some sun and relaxation after working so hard on Greek Conference prep and follow-up.  Also I tasted my first genuine Mojito 🙂

In March we celebrated Zach turning 26 and Lucy turning 1!!  She’s a rescue dog so we know she was born in March but we’re not sure when, so we decided that Lucy and Zach can share the same birthday!  I second shot three weddings in March to kick off the season!

April was an adventurous month!  We pulled off a great April fools prank, sodded our front lawn, and I wrapped things up on campus.  We were in for a surprise when our 100 year old main water line finally broke and we need to get the entire thing replaced.  Zach was on a business trip in Orlando and I wasn’t going to be able to use a drop of water in my house for the next three days so I caught a cheap flight to Orlando to stay with him!  The company put him in an Animal Kingdom Disney resort so I woke up to Giraffe’s outside my window every morning!  We came home to quite a mess, but fortunately the new pipes worked well enough for Zach to surprise me with a Golden birthday party (I turned 27 on the 27th). 

May always starts off with Rockbridge- our Greek IV summer camp.  It’s always an amazing week that leaves me exhausted!  Zach left for a business trip in Baltimore the day I got home from Rockbridge so I decided to meet him there for a few days.  We got espresso and gelato in Little Italy and (knowing our Italy savings account was ready) wondered in the back of our minds if this was really the summer we would go to real Italy.  The rest of May we spent taking long walks and trying to decide if we wanted to move South or if we wanted to stay and if we stayed would we refinance our house or find a bigger one. 

To our complete and utter surprise, our neighbors who lived in the house we had drooled over for three years, decided it was time to move.  Since we moved to Hilton Village in 2009 we thought 63 Main was the best house and property in the neighborhood.  At the risk of complete heartbreak, we put everything aside and frantically called loan officers, put our beloved duplex on the market and prayed that the Lord’s will would be done above all.  It was a great time to buy but a hard time to sell.  To top that, our plan had been to EITHER go to Italy OR move this summer.  When it looked like nothing would happen with the new home situation and tickets to Italy dropped to $400 round trip, we booked our Italy trip!  Little did we know that the Lord had plans for us to do both.  66 Main sold in two weeks to a couple that LOVED it just as much as we did.  We knew it was the right choice.  So we signed the contracts all the way around and began packing! 

Besides being chock-full of weddings, June started out relaxing and quickly got crazy.  We took a week off to spend with my family at an amazing beach house in the Outer Banks.  Such a fun time of sun and laughter all together.  It was the calm before the storm.

The rest of June we packed and sold everything we could.  And then came the craziest 48 hours of my life.  We woke up early that morning and began the process of moving out of 66 Main.  A team of amazing friends, dubbed, “the Main Street Movers” helped us walk every box across the street and pack it into a storage unit where it would stay until we were able to close on 63 Main in August.  At noon, I had to shower and put on a dress and go shoot a wedding in Richmond, leaving Zach to the cleaning.  At midnight I arrived back in Newport News, officially homeless!  Our friends Jen and Derek GRACIOUSLY allowed us to crash at their place that night and leave our dog with them for the next two weeks.  We slept a few hours, woke earlier, and drove back to Main street where our sweet neighbor Nancy then drove us to the train station as we began our journey to Italy!  Talk about CRAZY!!!

We loved our time spent in Italy over the first ten days of July.  We saw Venice, Tuscany and Rome and it was everything we hoped it would be!  We ate great food, tasted all kinds of wine and limoncello, and just had a blast exploring each place.  Coming home, the Lord provided once again as we got to “house sit” for our dear friends Jon and Lauren as they were in South Africa for the exact amount of time that we were still homeless waiting on our closing date for 63 Main.  

On August 1st we closed on 63, and celebrated with a large Dos Equis at Plaza like we had done after closing on 66 Main in 2009.  Zach went back to work the next day and I slowly but surely moved us in with the help of my mom and brother.  Two days later the house was ready for my friend Rachel’s shower!  We spent the rest of August getting settled, wrapping up a few weddings, and gearing up for my students to return.  No picture but minor detail- I water skiied for the first time at our staff team meetings (one of my life goals, along with going to Italy and becoming a photographer!!)… thanks Eric and Kip!Lucy’s new post.  Her new door to her new backyard.  

In September we celebrated three years of marriage and two homes!!  We also decided it was time to do a little more relaxing in our lives!  We started watching this thing called television and discovered what we had been missing out on!  

To continue our relaxation we got away with some friends in October to a bay house and spent the weekend eating and sleeping and hanging out… it was perfection!  Lucy tried to sabotage our Halloween but we got pay back by making her dress like a lady bug!  Halloween in Hilton Village is the best of the best.  Everyone participates and because of our great sidewalks we get a TON of kids.  We keep count with our neighbors, Leigh and Nancy, and I think this year we gave out over 800 pieces of candy!

Eastern Virginia holds their Fall Conference in November and Greek IV joined them for the first time this year!  I spent the week before the conference in Durham, NC planning for Greek Conference 2013 with fellow Greek staff!  Literally all I remember from the rest of November is PORTRAIT SESSIONS!  Everyone wanted their Christmas pictures taken and it was such a blast constantly getting to hang out with my friends and take pretty pictures for them!  After 16 portrait session I was completely spent so unfortunately we have no pictures of our own family in November!  We did Thanksgiving with just the Fauvers this year and we celebrated my nephew, JP’s first birthday!  My mother in law took this picture of all the Fauver/Kang kids.  

December means parties and a LOT of them!  We finished out the year on campus with a Greek IV Christmas party- ugly sweater style of course.  I love those kids!  A few days later I was off to Rockbridge for Regional staff training that was incredibly helpful this year.  Again, I would have come home to an empty house, so instead I went with Zach on his business trip to Orlando again.  This time was not in a disney resort but it was still fun to sit by the pool and read while he worked!  We came home and wrapped presents, decorated our tree and spent time with friends every evening.  We spent Christmas with just the Pearsons this year and had a great time relaxing and laughing at all three dogs playing

Who know’s what January and 2013 will hold in store but our hope and joy in it all is Jesus Christ and his glorious righteousness that covers us.  He is the author and perfecter of our faith and our desire is His glory in all things!