{Beauty is in the Details...}
Happy New Year!
If you don't ever do this, I highly recommend you go try it right now...
I just spent the past day or so going thru all of the pictures that I have taken for the past year. There is nothing like a little bit of visual reflection to remind you how far you have come in twelve months.
What I found when I looked at my photos (about a kajillion, as you can imagine) is that we had a good...mostly great...year. There were, of course, the rough parts, the sad parts, the parts that tested us and forced us to dig deep. But for the most part, when I looked at my picture collection from 2014 I found reasons to smile. Life is never going to be perfect, but it can be happy if we celebrate the good things we are given.
Today, as we begin a new year, I am celebrating 2015 by saying farewell to 2014 one last time. Here is a collection of my favorite photos and most memorable moments from last year...
January
Snow forced us out of New York for the New Year but gave us an opportunity to play at the farm. My son finally found out what Georgia Clay means...
February
Snow, snow and more snow. The first time I've ever been snowed in the City. Thanks for that, Polar Vortex.
March
We finally found a little sun in Bal Harbor. a few days of warmth was just what we needed to make it thru the rest of a very rough winter in NYC.
April
Our first trip to Nanny and Big Dad's house. I couldn't wait to take my son home to the house that I lived in for the first two years of my life, and I was thrilled to find he loves it as much as I do. A personal highlight for the little one: Feeding a baby cow at a nearby farm.
May
Turcs and Caicos here we come! It was a long hard road to Memorial Day weekend, but summer had finally arrived.
June
an unexpected goodbye
Sadly, I learned of my dear grandmother's passing on the plane as we flew home from Turcs. It felt like I had just been punched in the stomach as I choked back tears in the customs line at JFK. I was not ready to say goodbye to Grandma. She was a special lady who loved her family with all her heart and made each and every one of us feel special. We celebrated her life at the farm, where we had celebrated so many other family events over the years. And while it was devastating to say goodbye before we were ready, watching my son and his cousins--the next generation--roam the farm just as my sisters and I had done many years earlier, was a reminder that our Grandparents' spirits will live on inside of us and around us forever.
July
A beautiful family wedding in Nashville Tennessee on a balmy Summer weekend.
August
East Hampton
I will keep it brief (-ish) because I can start to sound like, "One time at band camp..." if I don't keep myself in check. The month of August is typically a month I am not fond of...New York is really stinky, sticky and generally unappealing in the dead of August. On the other hand, East Hampton is quite the opposite...it is clean, the air is fresh and people use deodorant! All joking aside, August 2014 was one of the best months I can remember in a long time, mostly because I shared it with my family. And for the first time in quite a while, we did not board an airplane for an entire month...
September
First haircut, first day of school and turning three...A big month indeed!
October
Another family wedding in the beautiful South.
And Halloween in the City: definitely different than Halloween in Albany GA! We trick-or-treat indoors. After almost twelve years I still find this odd. (He never wore the bottom half of his costume because we never even made it off our floor!)
November
Our last trip South for the year (and our last good weather for a while...)
December
The city and our son buzzed with the excitement of Christmas all month long...
And In a flash...it's time to start again. Happy New Year to you and your family. May 2015 bring you happiness, health, cupcakes, and most of all, LOVE.
xo...
ki (and the fam)