A Year in Photos & Words :: 2011

I've been vacillating about leaving this space over the past week or so.  I like to reassess my life at year-end, make changes, slough off the old and set new intentions for the coming year.  I struggle with finding the words each week to express exactly what I want to say and find that writing is not easy for me.

This year I framed my blog with images and they set the stage for my writing.  But I struggled with that, too, as our internet connection is sluggish and the photo editing program I was using sucked up too much of our daily internet usage allowance.  That left me to edit photos between the hours of 11 pm and 4 am when we had unlimited access.  Not the most optimal times, right?  Agreed.

But I pushed on and then adopted the nuggets format from a fellow blogger, so that I could at least force myself to post once a week and jot down a few things that were happening in our lives.  

As I was perusing the thousands of photos from 2011 and editing and/or dumping hundreds of them, I realized how happy I am that I have this blog and that it serves as a sort of memory catcher for me and our family.  It seems that I am the narrator of our life and sometimes that feels overwhelming.  But I'm going to get over myself and keep at it because I loved looking back at our last year and being visually reminded of what a rich and beautiful life we have.  I read some of my past posts and actually liked my writing in a few of them, too.  It's hard to read your own stuff, but this was a necessary step in nudging me to keep on going.  

And so, here is my year in photos, along with a few words from 2011:

JANUARY
::  My intention for the new year was Balance.  
::  I joined the photography e-course You Are Your Own Muse & took a lot of self-portraits!
::  Grady started with his first indoor soccer team.
::  There were a few animal escapades with a near wild goat goring (of me!) and a swarm of cows escorting me and my wine drinking girlfriends down the hill behind our house.  Lordy, lordy.

FEBRUARY
::  Our friend invited us over to see her baby goats & baby lambs at the Erickson Ranch.
::  We took several jaunts to the beach after school to play in the sand and catch the gorgeous afternoon sunlight.  We returned our enormous sea glass collection back to mother nature, too.
::  The Tomales PTA held the second annual clothing swap & it was a huge success.
::  We attended the annual 4-H crab feast in Santa Rosa with our good friends.
::  Attended the Discarded to Divine preview at West County Design & at the deYoung.
::  Made our first visit of the year to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
::  Mustard fields & plum blossoms held my attention a good part of this month.

MARCH
::  Six new little chicks joined our flock.
::  Our Parisian friends came for a quick, fun-filled visit.
::  My mother celebrated her 60th trip around the sun & we celebrated her properly with a special dinner party during a big rain storm!
::  Grady met his Great Aunt Glenda and fell in love with her.
::  We had a big hail storm and mild flooding around our home.
::  Attended my first letterpress class at Iota Press in Sebastopol.
::  We pruned our fruit trees & watched the daffodils & magnolias bloom this month in earnest.

APRIL
::  Celebrated Easter here with the Rangel girls and perfected my Dutch Baby Pancake!
::  Our boy turned eight and we had our first-ever, before school birthday party here at home.  Surely to become an annual event between the three of us.
::  G was gifted a Swiss Army knife from his father & loved it.
::  Grady also had the opportunity to be a Scientist for a Day at the Gladstone Institute's Take Your Child to Work Day.  He made square bubbles, took the DNA from a strawberry and learned about the Big Bang!
::  The Mahleys brought five heart specimens to the TES second graders.  So cool!
::  The 38th Annual Fisherman's Festival went off without a hitch.

MAY

::  Attended the first Bodega Bay Short Film Festival at the UC Davis Marine Lab.

::  Oysterpalooza in Valley Ford.

::  Journeyed to Maker Faire and got our science fix.

::  We redeemed our auction item of a Point Reyes cattle ranch tour at the Lucchesi Ranch & toured this amazing, vast ranch land in a jeep.  Breathtaking.

::  Our sweet dog, Molly Gray, died from lymphoma and losing her hit our family hard.

JUNE
::  School was out and we were more than ready for summer.
::  Steve & Grady designed and started building the coolest tree house in all of Valley Ford.
::  Our boy was sick with heat exhaustion (first time ever) after a sweltering day at camp.
::  Road trip to Southern California to rendezvous with the Christiansen & Rangel clans.
::  Sunset Magazine's Celebration Weekend w/ Jill.
::  Pink Martini at the San Francisco Davies Symphony hall with my guys was amazing!
::  My mom and her husband packed up and moved back to Arizona.  That was hard on my little guy, but he looked forward to being pen pals and the promises of future trips.

JULY
::  This month was all about extracurricular activities.  Swim, golf & tennis lessons in Bodega Bay for the boy.  Our friend gave us their home for the week.  What a relaxing time.
::  The haying of the fields in Valley Ford had me pulling over to take pictures all month long (much to the chagrin of my son).
::  The Davis Family came to visit all the way from Virginia and we went to the beach, thrifted and had many belly laughs around my table.
::  We celebrated Bob Mahley's 70th birthday at Gourmet au Bay.

AUGUST

::  Grady went away to his first sleepover camp at the Point Reyes National Seashore Science Camp and had a blast.  He barely mumbled goodbye to us and then hardly acknowledged us when we came to pick him up!

::  Picked blackberries as fast as we could this month & froze them for future canning endeavors.

::  The Bodega Big Event!

::  10-day road trip with the Rangel women to the Pacific Northwest. The highlight of the trip was climbing part of Mt. Rainier and galvanizing our bonds of friendship.

::  Our sweet little cross-beaked hen, Dolly, passed away from starvation.  We had a proper burial for her, of course.

::  Had the chance to see the The Gertrude Stein exhibit at SF MOMA w/ friends.

SEPTEMBER

::  The naked ladies are in full bloom this month and such a lovely site to see.

::  Harvested baskets of apples, pears, tomatoes, chard, carrots and more blackberries.  

::  Grady started 3rd grade this year with his first male teacher, Mr. Demsher, who happens to also have a snake in his class - making him super cool.

::  Late night beach romps were necessary to spot the bioluminescense at Salmon Creek Beach.

::  My 41-derful birthday celebration was quiet one this year and celebrated with our dear friends over an amazing home cooked meal.

::  My first silk screening class went off without a hitch and I loved the process.

::  My goddaughter turned 8 and we celebrated in style at our secret beach and gifted her her very own skim board.  

::  Soccer ruled our schedule a good part of this month, too.  

OCTOBER

::  We returned to the Post Ranch Inn to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary.  

::  The Johns Street yard sale was kind of a bust this year, but it forced us to purge our household and then hang out all weekend and visit with our neighbors.  Not all bad.

::  Grady raised over $300 for his class in his school jog-a-thon thanks to our generous and kind friends and neighbors.

::  Another trip to the Academy of Sciences with Grady and his best buddy.

::  Rangel birthday bash at our pad, complete good food, wine & a little break dancing.

::  Shared in our good friend, Marty's, 70th birthday party in Bodega Bay.

::  Steve took first place at the Chute Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest, even though he was almost disqualified for using a gourd.  Oh, details, details.

::  Grady was a "friendly pirate" for Halloween this year and designed the costume himself.

::  The first and only goal of the season was made during the last game of the soccer tournament weekend.  So proud!

NOVEMBER
::  Grady's art show took center stage this month, as he named all of his pieces, we printed, framed & hung over 50 pieces of his art at the Sonoma Coast Fish Bank.
::  Steve's dad and my mom came up and helped celebrate this momentous occasion for our family.
::  Mostly Natives Nursery had an incredible plant sale (+ some freebies) and we put close to 30 new plants in the ground at our place.
::  G entered four pieces in the Bodega Bay Fisherman's Festival Art Contest.
::  We were treated to a wonderful performance of A Christmas Story at the Sixth Street Playhouse with our friends.
::  We put the finishing touches on the new-to-us art studio in Grady's former playhouse.
::  Celebrated a quiet Thanksgiving, wherein Steve & Grady cooked a Turkey, Mashed Potatoes & the almost-famous cranberries!
::  Witnessed the incredible Jerry Kermode woodturning demo at West County Design.
::  New tradition of mulled wine, crafting & wreathmaking the day after Thanksgiving at my place w/ Jill.
::  Attended the Richard Serra Drawing Restrospective at SF MOMA.

DECEMBER

::  CYO Basketball season is underway and G is playing for the first time.  He made his first game basket during game 3.

::  Lots of xmas making went on this month, as well as game playing, wrestling matches and decorating for the season.

::  We celebrated Mary Lou's 60th, along with Scott V's birthday, with a big 'ole crab & sparkling wine dinner at our pad.

::  Attended our friend's performance in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory at the Cinnabar Theatre in Petaluma.  And, yes, the kids ate candy during the entire show!

::  We had frost on most mornings this month and kick-ass sunrises, as well as some of the most gorgeous sunsets I've seen in the last 10 years.

::  Our xmas eve open house was filled with good friends and helped us round out this year of plenty with the people closest and dearest to us.

::  We made a last minute getaway to Costanoa just days before the New Year and disconnected from our daily responsibilities, as well as reconnected with one another.

This is one of the few pictures from 2011 that I have of all three of us.  Funny how I am the narrator and picture-taker of the family and I'm hardly represented on this blog!  I'm sure a lot of other mothers out there notice that byproduct of being the family historian.

I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things, but the pictures from 2011 prompted the bullet points above.  Another sign that I need to be diligent in what I snap and ruthless when editing.

And while I'm sure I will still struggle with sharing and writing here on this blog, I think I will continue to do so and stretch myself creatively.  It feels good to look back and see all that is our life so clearly through words and images.

Happy 2012.