Plenty to Be Thankful For

As our year draws to a close, I’ve spent some time looking back over the past 12 months wondering how it went by so quickly. I remember adults telling me when I was younger that years fly by faster as you age. Well, a truer statement has never been said.
But thinking about this year in particular seems we couldn’t fit more in much more to be thankful for. Here is our year in review:

•My sister Ellen and brother-in-law Chad welcomed their first child Jackson last December

•My sister Rachel and brother-in-law Paul welcomed their first child Connor in May

•My brother Dan and now sister-in-law were married in August to round out the Tolley weddings

•Nick and I completed our own race circuit of the D.C. area with the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in March, Marine Corps Half Marathon in May, the 9/11 10th Anniversary Remembrance 5k in September and the Marine Corps Marathon in October

•We celebrated many of our friends’ engagements, weddings and births of first children

•Nick and I made spent a long weekend exploring San Francisco and Napa with family

•Nick received a well deserved promotion in November

•My Grandpa celebrated his 90th birthday at the end of November

We are now preparing to head back to Illinois for a week with family for Christmas. It’s hard to believe that soon we will be turning the calendar over to 2012. I often wonder what the new year will bring but I hope it is close to as fantastic as 2011.

Finishing Joining the Technology Age

For the past few months I’ve toyed with the idea of beginning a blog. My sister has one, as does my mom (though she hasn’t updated it in months) and so do many of our friends. I love reading what they are up to in various parts of the country and it usually helps me feel like they aren’t all that far away. Initially I was going to start a blog while we were training for our marathon but, well, that didn’t happen.

Right now I tweet, I Facebook, I email and I finally got a Smartphone after Nick took it upon himself to buy me the new iPhone. The only thing missing is a blog…and Pinterest but I have yet to grasp that concept. So here I am about to finish joining pretty much every new technology, social networking phenomenon out there. Well, that is until something else comes along.

And on a totally different note, I would be remiss if I didn’t end my first post with this disclaimer: Please don’t hold any spelling errors in future posts against me. We all know I wouldn’t have graduated college if it wasn’t for spell check.