2010 Year End Wrap-up

It's been an exciting year for the Malone Family. It started out with finding out that I was pregnant and is ending with a beautiful four month old baby, who is currently sleeping on my chest and drooling on my shoulder. Here's a look back at 2010:

January - David and I took a week-long trip to Taiwan to visit his old mission stomping grounds and completely missed the worst snowstorm Korea has had in 60 years. We visited lots of his old friends and explored Lukgang, Yuan-lin, Sun Moon Lake, and Taipei. David enjoyed eating all the Taiwanese food, but I had a rougher time on account of the little being growing inside of me.

February - We celebrated our birthdays with a big dinner party with our closest friends here in Korea and David bought me a sewing machine. I made it past my first trimester with no morning sickness (just slight nausea) and no vomiting and finally announced the good news to my family and friends. We went to the OB-GYN for the first time and saw tiny baby Zara (who, of course, we thought was a boy).

March - In anticipation of our baby's arrival, I started putting my sewing machine to good use and began work on a baby quilt. We visited Osan Air Force Base to enjoy Chili's (yes, that's a new-worthy event) and David went to Yonsei University for language training which helped him finally achieve a 3/3 on his DLPT. He's awesome like that.

April - We enjoyed the arrival of spring, cherry blossoms and fresh strawberries to Korea. I continued to grow my baby bump and worked on the baby quilt. Suyom got sick but with fluids and lots of rest, she made a full recovery. We had our 20-week check-up including an ultrasound to determine the baby's gender but the stubborn little thing decided she wants to keep us guessing by keeping her back to us, with her legs closed. The technician guessed it was a girl, but David and I refused to believe that our baby wasn't a boy. We didn't get a good look so why should we believe them? (Whoops.) My beloved Grandpa Hayman passes away on April 28th. I made the hard decision to not return home for his funeral (which ended up being a good decision though I would have loved to have been there with my family).

May - I went in for a round of three ultrasounds at a Korean hospital to get a better look at the baby's heart (all good there). Over Memorial Day weekend, David and I took a trip to Beijing, China. I climbed the Great Wall of China while six months pregnant and will probably be insanely proud of that fact until the day I die.

June - I give up all hope and patience with my baby quilt. It's still not done but it just needs to be bound. We celebrated our second anniversary by going out to an Indian restaurant in Itaewon and David was pulled over by the MPs (military police) on the way home for talking on his cell phone (which he wasn't) and he was let go with a "warning" (even though he didn't do anything wrong). David was also pulled to work at the front end which meant he worked a regular day job (7:30-4pm) at Yongsan (instead of working an hour south) and we got to see a lot more of each other which was lovely.

July - Celebrated Fourth of July with our friends, the Cottrells. At the beginning of the month, one of the doctors erroneously diagonosed me with pre-eclampsia which meant I had to pee in a jug and collect all my urine for a 24 hour period (twice). By the end of the month, they had me coming into the WICU twice a week for NSTs and blood pressure readings which consistently showed that everything was fine with the baby and that my blood pressure was normal. I visited the Seoul Zoo. I taught my last few English classes. David kept working at the front end, but went down to Pangyo twice a week.

August - Being large with child, I basically spend the whole month camped out on the couch, waiting for a baby to be born and continue to drag myself to the hospital twice a week. Zara finally makes her appearance on the 31st after 13 hours of labor! (Only 4 of that was active labor, though.)

September - Newborn fog time. Breastfed, burbed, and changed diapers. Repeated as necessary.

October - My parents come to Korea to visit us and met their newest granddaughter (#5 of 6 grandbabies). David blessed Zara at church on the 17th. We visited Busan, Chinhae, Jikjisa, and Gyeongju and grew to love Korea a little more. David started working down at Pangyo full-time again and I miss having him come home for lunch. I started tutoring again for a few hours a week. Zara celebrated her first Halloween and we attended our ward Halloween party as James, Lily and Harriet Potter.

November - Our friend Kimberly came to visit us and we explored more of Seoul together. Zara continued to grow and amaze us. We celebrated a very thankful Thanksgiving with our friends the Bartletts and the Cottrells.

December - A month of ups and downs, but we love our crazy baby and are amazed at how quickly she's growing and learning. (She even learned how to roll over this month.) We had a great Christmas together as a little family and look forward to what 2011 will bring us.

I learned a lot this year, about myself and the world around me and about other people. I'm amazed at how much growing I can and still need to do. I read a lot of great books, and changed a lot of my opinions, and became more involved in the happenings of the world around me. I expanded my talents and found new things to love. I continued to work on my cooking and baking, learned a lot of new techniques and found a lot of great recipes and hope to continue to expand into new cuisines. We made an effort to eat healthier and I found a new desire to make a lot of things from scratch, to can foods, and to garden. (Although our little potted garden was pitiful. I hope I'll have more success next year.) I really enjoyed taking up sewing again and have so many projects I'd like to do. I find sewing to be a fun "for me" hobby and helps me have something to look forward to outside of my daily mom and housewifely duties. And of course, the biggest change was that I became a mother which I'm not too humble to admit that I'm really good at, and I love it more than I thought I would. I thought I'd still feel a great desire to work and have a career and I was really worried about being defined a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom). Those desires aren't completely gone (someday I'll be a museum curator, I will!), but right now, I can't imagine having a better job than raising Zara and I just couldn't bear the thought of having to leave my daugther with someone else while I went to work. I'm just so thankful that David works so hard so that I have the opportunity to be at home with the baby.

David continues to amaze me with his hard work, determination, and intelligence. He really does work so hard and I'm so proud of him. On top of working an insane job with demanding hours (thanks North Korea), he's managed to keep his 4.0 GPA and is so, so close to finishing his B.A. in accounting. (He hopes to finish it up by June, just in time for him to get out of the Navy.) I think he's learned more about where his talents lie and has finally found the path and career he'd like to pursue. The Navy has been very good to him and us, for helping him to achieve his goals and pay for his education, but we're both really looking forward to his time being up and for having more control over our lives.

2011 holds a lot of unknowns right now, but I'm pretty confident that everything will work out that way it's supposed to. I'm looking forward to having another wonderful year which will hopefully include a visit to Japan, our return to America, and the next chapter of our lives as civilians. 2010, I will always remember you as a spectacular year, full of waves of joy and pools of sorrow (to quote John Lennon) but ultimately, you brought us the greatest gift of joy anyone can have: a little girl with her Daddy's crazy hair and her Mommy's dimples. It sure is going to be hard to top that.