year in review

2011 was quite year for me and my family, both good and horrible. It was a year of change, more than we usually encounter.

In brief...

Starting with the kids:

S. turned five and started kindergarten. He was also diagnoses with Asperger's. He is doing extremely well in school and the ASD stuff is what it is. He does not qualify for an IEP but is on a 504 to accommodate his selective mutism. It has been hard, but not awful. He has turned into a little boy, no longer a preschooler, right before our eyes. He has friends at school, his buddies, and he plays fairly well with his classmates. He had his first field trip on a school bus this year to see a play at a local community college. I got to go with him and he really enjoyed it. We took him to the Nutcracker a couple of weeks ago and he really liked that as well. He is learning to read at a quick clip and despite refusing to write until very recently his writing skills now surpass those of most of his classmates. He loves computer lab at school. He still loves Legos and builds all the time. He is doing great in swimming and can do backstroke very well unassisted.

L. turned two a couple of weeks ago. He is a beast. He is 1.5 inches taller than S. was at two, already 36 inches. He can climb anything (and does) and is incredibly strong. We did music and swimming all year and just started gymnastics which he loves. He explores constantly and watches *everything*. He knows how everything works and demonstrates it on a regular basis. He is very social, but can be quite serious. He has a moderate speech delay and is starting speech therapy next month. He has roughly 50 signs and uses them to make sentences. He is quite smart and knows how to communicate. He is cuddly and very, very opinionated.

Now us:

ptor switched jobs mid-year as his contract was ending with the large company where he was working. He is now at a start-up in a job he mostly enjoys and is good for him career-wise. He is on his second unicycle and uses it to go from his car to his office everyday. He still does HAM radio stuff, but not as much as he'd like to do.

I finished my board term at the preschool co-op in July and am still spent from that. That was a tremendous amount of work. I choreographed three (four if you count my loosely choreographed finale piece) new dances for the Fly Girls this year, brought back two older dances of mine, and as a group we performed eight different pieces this year. That was a lot. We spent most the year with 7-8 dancers and at year's end we are between 10-12. This is good. We had our big show in September and it was great. We also performed at a couple of Kentucky Fried Woman shows and at NOLOSE. I attended NOLOE again this year and enjoyed it a lot, though it is emotionally taxing. I taught a dance workshop there and modeled in the fashion show as well. The stress fracture in my foot still is fractured and needs surgery which is untenable currently. I made the decision to dance on it regardless and some days are better than others. It currently is on fire. I took four months off of dance to try to heal the foot and in that time started doing pilates which I love. Most weeks I manage 2-4 pilates and/or yoga workouts and I typically walk 3-5 days a week and dance 1-4 depending on our schedule. I took tons of photos and am working on sorting/editing, etc.

ptor and I celebrated eight years together and our six year wedding anniversary this year. It is still great.

The changes:

The biggest change of the year was that we bought and renovated a house, and somehow managed to move in it. We didn't really think buying a house was in the cards for us at all until very recently and we happened to find what we wanted and we got it. We did *a lot* of work to the house and still have stuff to do, but we are so, so happy in the new house. We love the floor plan and the additional space--we now have four bedrooms, two bathroom, a family room, living room, and screened patio. Good stuff.

Moving out the rental we were in for seven years was quite daunting, especially with two kids. We somehow got it done, and we are largely unpacked, but there is still some to go. Urgh.

As mentioned above, ptor changed jobs which was a big change, and S. started kindergarten which was also a huge change for everyone.

The bad:
We lost a friend and community member when dbubley died in June. I last saw her at the INND action in May. Just sad, and I am so very sad for loracs.

ptor's mom died in an accident in September. Also sad and mostly quite horrible.

My aunt, whom was like a second mom and was like a grandmother to our kids, got a freak case of pancreatitis in August. He died in December, never having left the hospital. It was horrific how sick she got and how much pain she was in. Losing her is something we still cannot comprehend much at all and fills me with tremendous sadness. Both my aunt and Betty were barely past sixty.

Places:

The kids and I did our usual frequent visits to places like the children's museum, the farm, wildlife refuges, zoos, the county fair etc. I took S. to the Exploratorium in August and he really enjoyed it. We spent three days in Yosemite in July and that was amazing. Just wonderful. Other than that we did not travel other than to see my family and Peter's trip to his mom's funeral.

All in all 2011 was a very mixed bag. We had some incredibly good changes in our lives and some incredibly horrible ones. It was a lot of stress all around and I am sure I have forgotten some things. Our biggest accomplishment was getting this house, getting the work done, and getting in it. I also cannot believe that I managed to do our big show given that my aunt got gravely ill, Peter's mom died, and we closed on the house all within a month of the show. We are hoping for a calmer year in 2012.