pc: @katieiredalee
To say I've been neglectful of this blog over the past year would be a massive understatement.
Somehow I got down to single digit posts in 2019... only 7 posts all year! And there was so much I wanted to write about! I didn't get to post as much as I wanted about our wedding, my yoga teacher training, about another summer spent with Groundswell or, especially, about being pregnant...
The year just flew by and so far 2020 isn't much different. Take this post for example... usually I get my annual recaps up in the first week of the month. Yet here we are, more than halfway into January. I'll blame it on pregnancy brain while I still can. ;)
This year I want to get back to writing and connecting here more, especially as I start new chapters in my life, becoming both a mother and an entrepreneur this year. I have a (great) feeling this will be a wild start to this next decade and I can't wait for all of it.
But before I kick off all of the exciting adventures ahead, I do want to make sure I jot down a proper recap and farewell to 2019. So here goes...
January
- We celebrated New Year's Day with the crew at brunch at Dunedin in North Park.
- Scanuary kicked off right away with my third colonscopy and a bonus endoscopy! I'm honestly so grateful for my team at UCSD who take such great care of me every time. #lynchsyndrome
- Attended a cool yoga class at The Museum of Man.
- I flew back east for a whirlwind few days in Boston and Connecticut to attend my cousin's wife's untimely and unexpected funeral.
- We finally got out to Big Bear for a weekend to celebrate our friend Megan's birthday with a little snowboarding, hot tubbing and beer drinking.
- Makena, Des and I completed the 7 Bridges Hike which I will have to blog about separately!
- And last, but definitely not least, in a truly heartbreaking and year-defining turn of events, I finished up work at the company I'd spent the past 3 years with and headed into February unemployed for the first time since I moved to San Diego almost a decade earlier.
February
- Newly minted Rams fans, we watched them lose the Superbowl. :(
- I flew back east for another family funeral, this time to NYC and Connecticut to celebrate the long, amazing life of my Great Uncle Joe. I also got to spend time with family and friends this trip, meeting my friend Mare's son Liam for the first time.
- I officially changed my name!
- Ryan and I celebrated our first married Valentine's Day with a couple's massage at The Hidden Spa and a nice dinner at Bo Beau in OB.
- I started taking advantage of Free Tuesdays in San Diego, because #funemployment.
- Girl time galore! Des and I hiked Cowle's, Makena, Bonnie and I went on a weekend trip to San Clemente and Megan and I day tripped through the desert to check out the Desert X exhibit.
- The couple that hikes together... I even got Ryan on a Cowle's hike with me at the end of the month.
March
- I spent an afternoon volunteering with I Love a Clean San Diego, one of my favorite local non-profit organizations.
- Megan and I squeezed another daytrip in and headed to Lake Elsinore to check out the poppy Superbloom.
- I met up with Shanna and Tori to watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade downtown for the first time, then headed back to OB for some St. Paddy's cheer at The Harp.
- We also hosted my biggest St. Patrick's Day dinner yet, with a ton of friends and kiddos and again two Shepherd's Pies... one regular and one vegetarian. And I was so busy enjoying the day, I didn't take a single picture of either.
- My dad and I got to check out the Cherry Blossom blooms at the Japanese Friendship Garden.
- I kicked off my 10 Week yoga teacher training at Riffs in OB.
- Went to see Andrew McMahon wind down his Upside Down Flowers tour at the House of Blues.
- British Invasion! My Aunt Pat and cousin Mike came to visit San Diego from England for an awesome week of San Diego adventures. I went on the Midway for the first time, we did a brewery tour of OB and got to go whale watching.
- Unknowingly, I ate my last meal with meat in it and officially started down the path of vegetarianism!
April
- I started April off by starting a new job at a new company.
- Our local bookstore, Run for Cover, hosted a reading and book signing by Captain Liz Clark and I got to meet her!
- Ryan and I tried (and loved!) acupuncture at the new Modern Acupuncture in Mission Valley mall thanks to #bloglife.
- I volunteered with Groundswell at their water and cheering station for the Beach and Bay 5K.
- We got to celebrate our friends Kelly and Caitlin at their beautiful wedding in Mission Bay.
- I received an invite to test out the awesome new Fit Drone 3D Scan machine at Road Runner Sports and got outfitted with a new perfect fit pair of trail running shoes thanks to #bloglife.
- Enjoyed a really nice birthday dinner with Ryan, Bonnie and Makena at Cesarina to welcome in 33.
- Completed the weeklong Plastic Swear Jar challenge with the Changing Tides Foundation for Earth Day and used at least 52 pieces of single use plastic... in a week that I was actively trying to avoid and reduce it.
May
- Thanks to a short-lived stint collecting unemployment, my name was on the Jury Duty list and I got summonsed (but thankfully not selected!) for a day of jury duty.
- I taught my first yoga class to a group of my friends on the beach!
- Des, Makena and I squeezed in a drizzly day hike at Torrey Pines.
- I graduated from YTT with my 200 RYT Certificate!
- Our close friends Pre and Anj welcomed their second baby into the world!
- I attended Groundswell's Surf Sister volunteer training to return this year as a volunteer photographer for their summer camp.
- Makena, Bonnie and I went to see Jenny Lewis at the House of Blues... and I had my last full glass of red wine because I suspected that night that...
- I was pregnant!!! I'll write a separate blog post about this as well, but on May 30th I found out the amazing news that we were having our first babe!
June
- Ryan finished his first full year as a middle school science teacher.
- For Father's Day we told my dad that he was going to be a grandpa :)
- We headed for a relaxing weekend trip down to Baja with our friends Lindsey, James, Jess and Evan.
- A week later I flew to Charleston, South Carolina to celebrate my future sister-in-law, Claire, for her bachelorette... and had to fake drink for three days straight to keep our early-first-trimester babe a secret!
July
- At 8 weeks, we got to see our little bean of a babe on his first ultrasound!
- We had a low key 4th of July at our place as our friends started guessing I was pregnant.
- Finally got to hike Los Penasquitos Canyon with Des and Makena.
- I wrapped up photographing Groundswell's first 8 week surf therapy session of the summer by seeing some of my photos used in segments on The Today Show and Fox Sports.
- Ryan and I went to see Cage the Elephant, Spoon and Beck with friends.
- In baby news, we finally told most of our family and friends and found out that we were having a boy!!!
August
- For Makena's birthday we took a weekend trip to San Francisco and Napa to check out the city, hit up a drag show and go wine tasting... I got to DD the wine wagon (though there's a lot of wine decoys in the upcoming pics because we still hadn't announced to everyone that I was pregnant!)
- Ryan headed to Austin, TX for my brother's bachelor party and I treated myself to a spa day at Therapie.
- We celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday with a day at Lake San Marcos.
- Ryan started his first day of teaching at a new school!
- I headed down south to Ensenada then Valle de Guadalupe with Makena and Bonnie to celebrate Bonnie's 30th birthday weekend with an amazing couple of dinners at Animalon and Deckman's and tours of some of the local wineries.
September
- I got to see our baby boy one last time in utero during his anatomy ultrasound!
- We celebrated my friend Ellen's engagement at Modern Times.
- Then at the end of the month, we flew to Boston and headed to Connecticut for my brother and Claire's amazing wedding!
- Our stop on the east coast wasn't complete without a visit to Mare to see their new home and snap a 3 weeks apart bump shot as she was expecting her second boy and we were expecting our first.
October
- I went to see Lana Del Ray at SDSU with my friend Heidi.
- We celebrated our first wedding anniversary with an easy morning brunch at Raglan, a vow writing session on the beach where we got married, by announcing our pregnancy on social media, and then taking professional anniversary/maternity photos at Swami's before a nice dinner in Encinitas.
pc: @katieiredalee
- Des, Ian, Ryan and I hit up Knott's Scary Farm for a long night of scaring the crap out of ourselves with haunted trails.
- Ryan and I went to see Almost Famous the musical at The Old Globe and I got to meet Cameron Crowe after the show to tell him how Almost Famous is my favorite movie of all time... we even had it playing at our wedding reception!
- We also went to see Lizzo at SDSU later that week and attended our friend Shairi's play reading at The La Jolla Playhouse to round out a week of culture.
November
- Ryan and I flew to San Francisco to celebrate our friends Sameer and Mythili at their gorgeous wedding.
- When we returned we took my dad to C Level and got him a nice steak dinner to celebrate the big 7-0!
- I took the train up to LA spent a night at Disney Music Hall with Bonnie at a Sylvan Esso concert and finally tried the (vegan) pho at Daikokuya the next day for lunch.
- Baby and I kicked off the third trimester with a tiny scare in the ER (but everything turned out OK).
- On our rainiest Thanksgiving ever, I cooked two Thanksgiving dinners, one meat, one vegetarian (for me) for Ryan, Bonnie and Ryan's mom and stepdad.
- We set up our tree and kicked off our last Christmas season without kids!
December
- We braved the drizzle and went to the OB Christmas Parade with our friends Lindsey and James.
- We started our Hyponbirthing classes with The Birth Education Center at Whole Family Wellness in North Park.
- I celebrated my first sober Ernesto Day (our friend Ernesto's annual birthday shenanigans) and survived!
- The Spring/Summer 2020 Southern California Issue of The Knot came out with a feature on our wedding!
- Ryan and I went to see Andrew McMahon's acoustic show at The Music Box before heading to Lindsey's birthday party at The Red Fox Room.
- We had a nice, quiet Christmas Eve with my dad and a relaxing Christmas Day with Bonnie and my in-law's.
- Ryan turned 35 and we hit the bowling alley in Kearny Mesa to celebrate!
- In one of our quietest New Year's Eves to date, we welcomed in the decade by waking up at midnight to exchange a Happy New Year's to each other, having both passed out early, me from a stomach bug and Ryan from a long day of trying to prep the house for the new decade... and our new life as parents!
This was also the year that I paid off my car, all of my credit card debt and refinanced my student loans, making things a lot less stressful in the finances department. I think they call this adulting? ;)
In a lot of ways, my 2019 was similar to 2009... a transition year, a year of limbo knowing that the year to come, the start of the next decade is going to be a wildly exciting one. In 2010, I left my east coast life behind, moved to San Diego and established relationships with the people who would become my husband, family and friends.
And in 2020? We get to meet our son, hopefully start trying for our second child and I'll finally start my business... we may even buy a home!
But before I get too far into the future, I am happy to take a moment here to be grateful for the past and all the steps and stories that got me here. All in all, there was a lot of love and there were a lot things to celebrate this year. Most importantly I am so, so endlessly grateful that we were able to get pregnant and that I've had such a wonderful, smooth, happy pregnancy. And now I can't wait to meet our little dude in just a few short weeks!
So? Let's get this decade started...
