2022 Year In Review

The best thing to happen in 2022 was the birth of Goldie Celine Taylor on January 5th.

It's hard to believe in a few days we'll be celebrating Goldie's 1st birthday.

We've watched her grow and celebrate milestones each and every month - all the firsts, sitting up, crawling, all the fun interactions with her siblings and all the holidays. 

One of her favorite things to do is play out in the garage. This must be a gene passed down from Jamie.

Goldie hasn't started walking yet but she's real close. She's mastered stair climbing but is still a bit hesitant on the way down.

My new house is pretty much completely decorated. After the move in rush right before Christmas last year, I wasn't sure if everything would find a place. But boxes are emptied, window treatments and pictures are hung and new furniture set in place. The only thing that wasn't complete when I moved in was the landscaping in my backyard. This is what my backyard looked like when I moved in.

Now there's a  privacy fence, retaining wall, sod and a wrought iron fence. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm going to do a little landscaping above the retaining wall or if I can talk the HOA in to making it look a bit nicer.

And speaking of landscaping, for all those in the neighborhood that thought their view of the swamp (they call it a lake) was the best, I now have the largest yard with sod and trees all down the east side of my house. There's even talk of the HOA putting in a gazebo. So now who has the best lot in the neighborhood!

For the past couple of years I've had a birthday theme. Why I do this I have no idea. This year's theme was blowing out a birthday candle. Jamie's birthday was special because it was his 40th. Teresa also had an interesting Beddian birthday - being the same age as the last 2 digits of your birth year. I'm skipping any type of theme for 2023. The pressure is getting too much for me to handle.

I was also able to do some traveling. My friends, Debbie and Robin, took what was usually our yearly trip to New Smyrna Beach Florida. This time we were able to take a day and travel an hour up the coast to visit St Augustine.

The Taylor's, Teresa and I also took a trip to Santa Rosa Florida. So many things to do and see and not quite enough time to do it all.

In October I went to visit my friends Frank and Gloria. Besides seeing their beautiful condo on the strip it was a very profitable trip to Vegas. Something not many people can say.

Let's don't forget that disastrous trip to Colorado. The trip itself was great. Courtney was there and we did some paddle boarding, shopping and a lot of eating out.

And then there was the drive home where I dodged several pieces of big rig tire debris and the debris won. Tore up the whole underside of my car. Having a son-in-law as great as Jamie Taylor came in handy when he hitched up his trailer and traveled 800 miles round trip to rescue me from Burlington, Colorado.

I can't end the year without at least mentioning my effort at health and weight loss. I must have lost and gained the same 10 pounds 3 or 4 times this year. I went back to the gym and Michele and I challenged ourselves to walk 52 one mile hikes. I might have fudged a bit on the locations but I did log a little over 2,000,000 steps which more than makes up for the 52 miles of hikes.

I'm not making any New Year's resolutions for 2023. I never stick to them anyway. I'm hoping 2023 brings me a stress free life. Maybe I'll take a yoga class. There I go, already putting pressure on myself. Oh well...........Happy New Year!