A Look Back at 2010

I just recently came across a post I began in early January but never finished. I realize it's a little late to be reflecting on 2010, but since I had already begun, I figured I might as well finish. It's crazy to look back at January of 2010 and see all the changes that have taken place in our lives over the past year. We have a lot to be thankful for, the biggest thing being Jesse, but we also have seen God at work in ways we never would have expected this time last year (e.g. leaving Bulgaria). God has been faithful through it all and we wouldn't have it any other way.

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2010 has been a pretty eventful year for us, so I thought I'd recap it with some of the highlights.

January: We got settled into a regular routine with our Bulgarian language lessons. In one of my sessions I learned to make a banitsa, a traditional Bulgarian pastry.

February: We had our first real Mexican meal in months (a big deal when you love Mexican food as much as we do), thanks to a care package from back home.


March: We celebrated "Baba Marta" in Bulgaria on March 1st. "Baba Marta" means "grandmother March" and is a national holiday celebrating the first day of spring, although as you can tell from our coats in this picture, spring had not come yet.


James and I also took a trip to Istanbul, Turkey for fun. Here we are at the point where the Bosphorus Straits meet the Black Sea.



April: We took a road trip to Romania with Jon and Andrea to visit teammates in Transylvania. Here I am in Dracula's hometown.


May: Spring finally came to Bulgaria, and we found out we were expecting Jesse two days before James' birthday!


Jesse's very first picture, that tiny white speck in the middle:

June: We moved to a new apartment in Sofia in order to have a warmer place for the baby. My parents also came for a visit, and we did some traveling around Bulgaria and took a trip to Venice.



July: We found out that we were having a boy, and James' parents came for a visit. While they were there, we took a week-long road trip all over Bulgaria.



August: We made one of the toughest decisions we've ever had to make when we decided to leave Bulgaria. We spent our final days there with our friends/teammates and their little boy before we had to say our goodbyes. On one of the days we all took the chairlift up Mt. Vitosha, which can be seen all over Sofia.


September: We went camping at Petit Jean with James' family.



October: We went camping again, this time at Devil's Den on Halloween weekend. We had lots of fun carving pumpkins.



November: This year we were super thankful to get to spend Thanksgiving with our families after being overseas the previous Thanksgiving and Christmas.



December: Jesse was showered with gifts from our wonderful family and friends!


It was a great year!