I hope you had a wonderful Christmas & a great start to the New Year. I knew our holiday season was off to a great start when one week before Christmas, Nicole crawled into the kitchen, stood up all on her own and walked to me. Watching those first steps take place was one of the greatest moments of my life. My joy continued as we packed up our car and headed home to share those toddling steps with Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and cousins.
We had a fantastic holiday and I am still basking in the afterglow of it all. We spent over 30 hours in the car over the course of 8 days, which is a new record for us. We were blessed with fantastic driving conditions on (almost) every leg of our journey which we are deeply thankful for. Each destination was special in its own way and we are incredibly grateful for everyone who cleared their schedules to see us (and host us!) along the way. It's always bittersweet to come back from a trip and know that we didn't get to connect with all of our loved ones but at the end of the day we had to be realistic about how much time we could ask Nicole to spend in the car. We ended up only being able to see part of each of our families but our time with those we were able to see was hands down the best Christmas present I received this year.
Nicole handled all of those miles in the car like a true road warrior and had an absolute blast visiting our extended family. She is bursting at the seams with new words these days which made her interactions all the most personal. Hearing that sweet little voice warmly greet everyone and call her Grandpa by name made every round of Old McDonald Had a Farm worth it. I've been praying since we moved that our family would be around when Nicole started walking so sharing the awe and excitement of each trial step was a direct answer to prayer.
Now that our celebrations are done and our car is unpacked, I have been pondering what defining moments 2017 will have in store for us.
2014 - we got engaged & married
2015 - we bought a house, sold our condo & had a baby
2016 - we sold our house, left everything familiar and moved to Texas!
Although I doubt that 2017 will contain a milestone as big or as life changing as the line-items listed above, this year will still hold special significance to us in our faith, relationships and parenting. I'm looking forward to continuing to share our journey with you as the year unfolds.
Happy New Year!
Love,
Erica
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