Welcome to our first digital Christmas card. It’s been a busy year for us, traveling, still not finding a house to buy, and ultimately deciding to try out a new city starting next year.

2023 Highlights

In January, we celebrated Lucy’s 13th gotcha day!!

In February, we traveled to Wilmore, KY to experience the Asbury Revival and I got to show Christopher the places I remember from living there while my dad was in seminary. We also had to say goodbye to my parent’s goodest boy Jasper. He was such a sweet dog and we miss him.

In March, we visited New Mexico, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Blue Ridge, GA.

In April, we took Lucy to the Abingdon dog park because there are hardly ever other dogs there, so she could run around off-leash for a while. My parent’s new garage was finally finished and I set up a ribbon-cutting ceremony for us and pretty much forced them to participate. We spent a long weekend in Raleigh/Durham, NC to see Chicago the musical and check it out as a potential next place to call home.

In May, We celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. We went to Blue Ridge, GA again and celebrated the coronation of King Charles III by watching it on YouTube and having tea.

In June, we visited Orlando to see some of the fam and float around in pools. I also harvested a bunch of lettuce and some broccoli from my container garden.

In July, we surprised my parents with a 40th Wedding Anniversary brunch with the extended family. Later in the month, Chris had a work trip to Southern Orange County, YAY! I love California! We were finally able to go to Disneyland and California Adventure!!!

August was the month of midwestern state fairs! We went to both the Iowa and Minnesota State Fairs and whoa! I expected these to be big, but I was NOT prepared for just HOW BIG they were. They were both amazing and I would definitely try to make it back to one or both of them again. We had horrible weather in Iowa, it was 102 degrees on the day we went to the fair, and perfect weather in Minnesota so this time around Minnesota was the better fair, but if the weather had been lovely at both, it would be too hard to pick a favorite.

I also harvested my first carrots, bell peppers, and pepperoncini of the season.

September was a much quieter month for us. We went to the county fair and watched young children wrangle big pigs, it was hilarious and reminded me that no matter how cute an animal is, I have no business caring for a farm animal.

In October, we went to Texas to see the Annular Solar Eclipse in the path of annularity. It was cloudy all morning and during peak eclipse time but cleared up to a perfectly cloudless blue sky day after the eclipse was over. We still had fun seeing the San Antonio Missions and eating In-N-Out.

I also made my favorite Halloween costume, a Ms. Pac-Man game.

In November, we visited Florida to have Thanksgiving with Christopher’s family and see some of mine while we were in town.

In December, we are making a second scouting trip to Raleigh to look at neighborhoods and see if we think it will be a good next step.

We hope you had a wonderful 2023. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love, Natalie, Christopher, and Lucy