2012: A Retrospective

With just a few hours left, it is time to look back at the year that was!

Winter 2012 part 1: After deciding not to go back to Ontario for Christmas, we rang in the New Year in St. John’s with friends. Just after the new year, I launched the new look of my website. We finally got out snowshoeing and Mike’s sister Laura gave birth to our beautiful niece, Keela. I finished up my M.Sc., and we decided to move back to Ontario while my thesis was under examination.

Spring 2012: We packed up a truck and drove back to Toronto. It took 3.5 days, and we made time to see some friends along the way. Back in Toronto, we took the time to catch up with all the friends and family we hadn’t seen for over a year. I completed the final revisions to my thesis and submitted it in time for the spring convocation at MUN. We drove down to North Carolina to visit Laura and Kevin, and to finally meet Keela in person. We stopped in Washington D.C. to visit Roxane, Marilyn and the rest of the Carnegie gang, and an added bonus was getting to see the Marine Corps Air Show at Cherry Point!

Many people were kind enough to open their homes to us this spring, and for that we are very grateful. It really was wonderful seeing everyone again!

Summer 2012: Our Asian Adventure began! We left Toronto, headed for Tokyo at the beginning of June. We explored Japan, South Korea and China, meeting up with old friends and making new ones on the way. We finally settled down in Hsinchu, Taiwan. We bought ourselves some great road bikes and went for a bunch of nice rides in the middle of the night, when it was finally cool enough to exercise!

Fall and Winter 2012 part 2: I’ve been working part time as an English teacher, and Mike has been working diligently at a second degree. We had some awesome visitors (Mike and Angelina) and went to Hong Kong, Taipei and Kenting with them. Although we expected Christmas to be relatively uneventful, we ended up at a few Christmas parties, and managed to spend lots of time with our new friends despite not having any time off work (that comes at Chinese New Year). We’ll be going out in a couple of hours to watch the New Year fireworks from our friend Cynthia’s roof!

So that was our very busy year. A pretty great one, as far as everything goes! I’m looking forward to 2013 and all the adventures that will bring, and I hope you are too!