it's hittin' me now...

five days until the baby's born!

Wow.

This year has absolutely flown by... the time since Marie's seizure in May is just a blur in my memory. In retrospect, I think I was on autopilot a lot, tryin' to cope with the flood of information and decisions that had to be made. There were scary moments but we've also managed to have some amazing, happy moments. At one point, I thought I would look back on this year and think of it as "the year from hell" but I find myself thinkin' of it as a year filled with great moments. Ah, what the hell, I feel like a year-end recap even though it's not over yet...

• we had a great trip to Florida with my in-laws
• Marie got pregnant
  
• Marie had her seizure
• Marie and I celebrated (kinda) our 10th anniversary
  
• Jim and I went to Algonquin and did the trip I always intended to do
• My boys have grown up so much... P* is 9 years old and makin' me proud every day, M* is gaining confidence and coming out of his shell, and D*... wow, he is really becoming a deep character with an amazing sense of humour
• I re-modeled our family room
• My mom had her back surgery to fix some major issues she had
• My sister sold her house
• My parent built their "apartment" in the farmhouse and are very happy with it
  
• I'm finishing off our basement
• The baby is about to be born
• Christmas is almost here... one of my favorite times of the year 'cause you get to see family and generally people are in great moods
  

Through our experience this year, we discovered how generous people are and how many friends we have out there. From my brotha Jim living behind me, to our neighbours a few doors down to my good friend Geoff out there in R.I. enjoyin' his "new" life... everyone had something positive to say, helped out with things like taking the kids for a few hours, cookin' meals to help me out when everything had just happened... there is a lot of good out there and it's not as hard to find as some people think.

I also know of three people who have accomplished some great physical accomplishments: Jim ran his first half marathon, Geoff has re-discovered his biking and my sister's childhood friend complete an ironman! Those are AMAZING accomplishments and are very inspiring!


Well, I need to get ready for a meeting here at work so, for now I leave with those great memories in my mind.

Have a great day everyone!

g.