New Years Celebrations

Maybe Jenga can be used as an analogy for life. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's tough. Sometimes we fail, but there's always others there to share in our emotions and help us put the blocks back together. Through it all, we can live in the great joy and excitement of the moment, really embracing life and each feeling as it comes at us - and that's what makes it all worth it.

The past year has been an awesome roller coaster, filled with life events and travel, love and stress, and as always, learning. I have so much to be grateful for, not least of which my mozão and our families. B and I have grown so much in love. Turns out communication and compassion is a tough habit to earn, but the joy it garners is worth every moment. I feel every day how lucky B and I are for the love, support, and strength of our families. They provide us wisdom and a compass for navigating the dark and cloudy parts of life. I am blessed with wonderful friends, who are more like family. We laugh, we cry, we eat, and we talk together - we share in what we've garnered from our experiences and bolster each other with the best of memories.

Life is such a beautiful thing. My graduation from my doctoral program brought as much uncertainty and loss as it did a sense of accomplishment and happiness. I've said goodbye to some very dear friends in my program who are now moving on to other walks of life, just as I search for my next path forward. And while we all mourn Grandma's passing and frequently feel her loss, we laugh even more heartily with her memory and look forward with the greatest joy and love to the new life entering our family in 2014.

I can be sappy- it's been one hell of a year and 2014 looks like it will be just as amazing as the 28 that lead to it.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you a happy new year too!