A Decade to Remember

As I sit infront of my warm, cozy fireplace with my daughter sleeping upstairs and my fantastic, loving husband downstairs, I can't help but think how much has changed in my life over the last 10 years.  So come with me, dear followers, on a trip down memory lane for this past decade.

2000--I ended my freshman year of college at UNI, came home for the summer to nanny for a family I had previously nannied for, and began my sophomore year.

2001--I got a job at Valley Park childcare center in Cedar Falls... and in April of that year at a staff meeting, I saw a very handsome guy walk in {yes, that would be Coach :)}.  We closed the building together for the month of May, then he left for the summer.  But that fall, he came back and by October, we were dating. I finished up my sophomore year and looked forward to my junior year where I moved off campus and into a house with 9 other girls.  Insanity!  Coach finished up his classes in December. 

2002--I ended my junior year and ended my living situation with the 9 other girls and moved into an apartment with 2 other girls to start my senior year.  Coach moved back home to start his student teaching, thus starting the year and a half long distance relationship.  However, Coach lived with us for that summer while he took his last class and you guessed it, worked at the daycare some more.  We just couldn't get enough of that place!!!  All good things must come to an end, and sure enough they did.  Coach had to move back home again as he got his first teaching job for the big district.  I had a slight health scare in the spring when it was found that I had a mole on my lower stomach that was in the initial stages of melanoma.  Thankfully, after outpatient surgery and a great plastic surgeon doing it, they removed it all and left me with a nice scar.

2003--Senior year!  Yes!!  I worked 35 hours a week at the same daycare (see, it truly has always been in my life to work with other peoples' children), cleaned houses and babysat for my same families, all while fitting in classes and bi-weekly trips to see Coach {I was devastated that in the entire year and a half, I got the flu one weekend and was unable to see him.  One weekend out of 1.5 years though, not too bad.}  In May, I moved out of the apartment with the girls in CF, and moved in with Coach into an apartment in West Des Moines.  That August, Coach came home from work to find me elbow deep in dishwater chatting it up on the phone.  I looked and saw him on his knee with a dozen roses.   Yeppers folks, Coach and I got engaged and the wedding madness began, along with my student teaching madness!!!  I finally finished and graduated from UNI in December.

2004--I began subbing for several districts trying to get an "in", and went back to school at Upper Iowa to get my Reading Endorsement.  Coach settled into teaching 4th grade.  We had the most beautiful, perfect wedding in June, a fantastic honeymoon to Puerto Vallarta in July (right before I had outpatient surgery, again, to remove a pre-cancerous mole from my lower stomach, around an inch to an inch and a half away from the first one), and I got my first teaching job 2 days before school started, teaching 5th grade multicat SPED.  Coach and I also bought our first home and closed on it 2 days before I got my job.  Timing at its finest.  In September, we celebrated the wedding of my brother Jason, to his wife Ann.  We also welcomed Bogart to our little family.

2005--I found out I had to go back to school...again...to get my Strat I degree (to teach Levels 1 & 2 SPED), so back to Upper Iowa I went, and away went every Saturday for the year for me.  I began teaching the MD Cluster in the fall of this year.  Coach continued to teach 4th grade. We continued to do projects to our home, and I began working my part-time job doing SCL and Respite.  Coach became Coach to the freshman baseball team and became, well, Coach :)

2006--I continued to teach the MD Cluster, and Coach moved to 5th grade.  I finished my Strat I degree program, only to find out I needed to go back to school...AGAIN...to get my Strat II endorsement (in order to teach Level 3 MD).  So, away went my Wednesday night's and Saturday's, as well as my summer, that is, when I wasn't at the ball park or working.  Edgar joined our family.

2007--Coach stayed in 5th grade, kept coaching the freshman team, and I stayed teaching the Cluster and you guessed it, kept going to school.  I also kept up the SCL & Respite, and added Office Manager for Security at Jack Trice Stadium for ISU football games to the mix. 

2008--Coach stayed in 5th grade, kept coaching the freshman team, and I stayed teaching the Cluster, doing SCL & Respite, and continued work at ISU for football.  I had to student teach {in my own classroom}, and wrote my thesis which thankfully, was accepted!!  In November, we learned the best news ever...we were pregnant!!!!!!  In December we traveled to Austin TX to visit my brother and his family.  We returned on NYE to find that our heater had broke while we were gone.  I spent NYE in a hotel with my parents while Coach stayed at home to figure out the heat problem.

2009--The heater got fixed, Coach kept teaching and coaching, and I kept teaching and doing SCL and Respite & ISU work.  In the late winter/early spring, we found out we were having a girl, and in May I graduated with my Master's degree in Mental Disabilities, and ended my 10-year, 3 college undergrad/post grad career.  Coach and his friends re-roofed our beloved home.  On July 24, we welcomed the beautiful Lovebug to our family.

2010--Our craziest year yet.  We celebrated 6 years of marriage, celebrated Lovebug's first birthday, went to nearly all of Coach's baseball games, kept working the side jobs, sold our first home, bought our new home, said good-bye to Bogart as we had to put him down due to abdominal cancer, and Coach changed buildings.

Wow!!  Seriously, these past 10 years have brought so many changes our way.  They've been, by far, the best 10 years of my life, and I look forward to what the next 10 will bring here in Lynamland.