I'm back....

So I was struggling for a long time whether to go private with the blog or not, and to be honest, whether to keep blogging at all. But I've decided to keep blogging and to keep it public after all. Sorry there has been such a big time gap in this blog, but I had no desire to keep up with it. I had been all gung-ho to start blogging more often and then I just wanted to quit, for several reasons that I just don't want to get into. The point is, I'm back at'er now and ready to keep going. The only problem now is all the time I missed. A lot's happened in the past few months and it will take way too long to update three, almost four, months worth. So I'll start with Christmas and our trip back to Canada and work from there.
So Zach finished his Medicine rotation on the 26th of November, just in time for American Thanksgiving(I guess I'll start with Thanksgiving, not Christmas:)). We ended up hosting it, oddly enough since we're Canadian n'all, and it was so much fun. We had Jason, Laura and Adelyn over, along with Donny, Lisa and their kids Noah, River and Elliot and our friend Ryan. Doesn't sound like too many people, but in our little place it was quite full... mainly because we had a Christmas tree crammed in by that time too! The day was spend as typically American as it gets, watching football and jamming our stomach's full of great food.
The day after Thanksgiving, my brother Will and his wife Linda came to visit. This was their first big vacation, without kids, since their honeymoon... over 11 years ago! Needless to say it was long overdue and they had a great time and so did we!
They left on the 4th of December and that night Zach and I went to see Harry Connick Jr. in Newark on his Holiday tour and it was AMAZING!! Zach had surprised me with tickets a few weeks earlier(for our fifth anniversary that was coming up) and had also arranged a babysitter for Aubrey. This was my first time away from Aubrey(for more then a hour) and I got to say, it took me a little while to get used to it and there were a few tears shed. But I got over it one song into the concert and we had the time of our lives! I could go on for an entire post about Harry and how amazing he was, but I wont bore you with that... but it was amazing and he is a phenomenal singer/song writer/composer/big band leader/performer... the list goes on. ANYWAYS, that was great and the next day we packed and got ready to fly out on the sixth.
The flight to Canada went great, Aubrey pretty much sat and hung out the entire time, not making too much of a peep(always a good thing). The entire trip in Canada was good, crazy, but good. We got to see lots of people, none of them as much as we would have liked, but that is the way it always is. Aubrey's first Christmas was awesome. She was so into opening all the gifts and gave such awesome reactions to each one. She was great at unwrapping and once she got to the gift she would grunt with excitement or scream and we would all just laugh. Good times:) We got tons of snow the whole time we were there, which was a bummer for Zach's golf game(!) but great for his hockey. He got to play pond-hockey twice and he was in his glory after each time. It really did feel like an uber-Canadian trip this time for some reason. I guess when there's crap-loads of snow and pond hockey, that will do it. The Kliewer family gathering was the gong-show that it always is. But saying that, I think it, in a weird way, was calmer then normal... how I don't know because there were 10 kids under the age of 9 there! Zach's family thing was great too. Zach's mom's sister, Saralie, and her daughter Nicole came and we had a blast. They're from LA so the snowy Christmas was fine by them!
So after Christmas was time to head home and we left on the 27th, our fifth anniversary. Nothing like being on a plane for your anniversary, but Zach had more then made up for it by getting me those Harry tickets!! The flight home was great again and we were/are so thankful that Aubrey is such a great flyer(so far)! We got home and Zach had one day of rest before he had to head back to work/school. He's doing a Vascular rotation right now and absolutely loving it and the Doctor he's working with. It's great to see him love what he's doing again, the Medicine rotation was a bit rough and there will be a few more rough ones to come, so he's basking in it... and so am I:) One of the papers he wrote got accepted to some journal(I think that's the right wording...I'm still learning too:)) and he's going to a conference in Florida this week, Thursday, to present it. I would have loved to go along, but it is at some hoity-toity resort and we couldn't afford a room there! Good thing the school is putting him up for the trip, we would have never been able to afford it! Such is the life of a Med-student and his family.
Aubrey is doing great, on the cusp of crawling and I think that it'll happen any day now(hopefully not while Zach is away)! She's clapping, waving, giggling and teething! Her two top front teeth are making their way through and she's been having some rough nights... ergo I've been having some rough nights... and hopefully they make their appearance soon, it's not too fun. I'd like to be able to sleep more then a two hour stretch at a time! Luckily she's been doing okay with her naps so I've been able to get something done around the house... and a bit of a breather.
So that has been our life over the last little bit. I'll post some pictures yet, but I need to get through and narrow them down a bit, well, a lot:) I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years!