Ranaldi Way of Life

Everyone seems to be making their post 2011 status’ or blog articles… guess I better jump on that bandwagon. 🙂

For me 2011 was jam packed full of memories that I will cherish forever.  Eric was able to spend a good portion of the Summer home with us and man did we take advantage of that!! We went to the zoo, we went to the beach, we went to the Wave Water Park (for the first time), we went to the zoo, we spent time just sitting at home playing shoots and ladders or watching movies together…

One VERY memorable family experience was our horrendous car ride to Oregon for 4th of July.  The beach house and the celebrations that took place once we were there were incredible, but the car ride with a screaming baby and her poor miserable siblings was torturous!  And yet… memorable. 🙂

2011 marked my baby’s 1st birthday, our move into our new little farm house and a huge change in lifestyle taking care of all these animals and being around my grandparents regularly.  This last year brought a positive change for Kaelob when we moved to Encinitas and he switched to a new school and joined a wonderful class with amazing teachers that encourage him and support him every day.  Haylee joined down the street at my old preschool and both the big kids started extra curricular activities that they love : Ballet and Karate. Peytne has grown SO much this last year!! It’s hard to believe that January of 2011 she was only crawling and couldn’t really talk… wow!

Eric and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary and began planning our big shin dig for our 10th Eric completed his resume and applied for a couple computer jobs and really got the ball rolling to change careers and be home with the family. I am SO proud of him.

I dabbled in music in 2011, playing guitar and learning new chords that I just can’t seem to get the hang of.  I was gently encouraged to sing on worship team at my church and stretched my comfort zone a bit by singing with the large congregation at South O and the smaller more intimate setting of Gen City. I love BOTH groups and am excited to see what 2012 brings me and the ways I can learn and grow musically. I got to take a once in a lifetime trip out to Florida to visit my best friend and take her as my date to another friend’s wedding in Key West! SUCH a treat! GREAT memories created that week and all that quality time together with friends brought me the sanity I needed to return home and prepare for what was about to come my way….

2011 brought a LOT of losses for our family. We lost our precious cat; Oliver. I truly thing poor Hanna (the dog) misses him more than anyone else. We lost Eric’s trusty ole’ Truck.  We had replaced the transmission for the last time, in Vegas no less… so this time away it went. good riddance right? Ugh….replacing it-not so easy.  I lost a few friends this last year… not necessarily due to a conflict but life. We slowly lost communication and just simply phased each other out of our lives.  It saddens me to think of the friendships I let slip out of my fingers this last year, especially when I know how many blogs and how much time was wasted on whining about being lonely and not having friends… The most devastating loss by FAR in 2011 was that of my beloved grandfather. He was a great man, as you know I have said before and is sorely missed.  This year will be remembered forever because of this single moment.  Granted a lot of other things happened, but when 20 years from now I look back and try to think of what happened in 2011 ….losing Pop will still be the very first thing that comes to my mind.

OKAY- Enough with loss and past memories…. Bring on 2012!!!!

I’ve decided to make a sort of “Bucket List” for 2012 and document it here… not necessarily in any particular order, but a list of things that I want to do for me in the year 2012.

1. Go to Disneyland (with or without the kids)

2. Go horseback riding

3. Make ice cream in my new ice cream maker!

4. Learn to make egg rolls from scratch

5. Learn to drive my dad’s boat and go shark fishing

6. Buy a hot tub for our backyard.

7.  Have the garden of my dreams

8. Potty train Peytne

9. Teach my children how to play an instrument

10. Go on a relaxing & adventurous vacation with my BFF

11. Buy Eric his dream puppy

12. EXERCISE!!

13.  Learn how to cook with fresh herbs

14. Turn my little word press blog into my own website

15. Find araucana chickens

16. Strengthen the relationships of those around me and rekindle those that were lost

17. Read my Bible daily

18. Blog/journal daily

19. Keep my house clean for an entire week!!

20. Save money

21. Watch the sunset at the beach

22. Change someone’s life