2010 - what a year

Ok, I guess it's time to face up to the fact that I have not had an entry for about 1 1/2 yrs. Oddly enough 2010 was probably one of our more interesting years. Here's the quick summary:

January 15th: John's last day at Brown & Brown

January-Marchish: we try to decide what John will be doing for a new CAREER not JOB and where we want to live. We decide that we are feeling good about Tucson and put our house on the market FSBO. Within a week our house is under contract and we are amazed. Although it was priced well, we were still surprised how lucky we were. Ultimately it did close on May 26th and we knew we had made the right decision to put it on the market when we did.

March: with the house under contract we know we need a plan and ultimately decide to have John run for Justice of the Peace in Tucson. Kind of a crazy idea but we decided to really go for it and see what would happen.

April: John moves to Tucson and begins collecting signatures and we later join him on May 26th. That was quite the move. We had the moving truck, John's truck and my van so full that I literally had no where to put my purse. This is not an exaggeration, my van had every nook and cranny taken. We made it though and got settled in with a few more dings on our furniture than previous moves. Thanks you movers...

Summer of 2010: In the blazing heat, we all go tracting door to door to hand out fliers and talk to people about John as a candidate. Lesley, Benjamin, Alan, and Angela all pitched in on the door to door and Lindsey, Lesley and Angela made a million phone calls. John worked full time on it nearly every day. It was amazing to see him out in 110 degrees with a suit jacket on. We all put in a big effort and felt that we had done all we could.

August 7th: Madison gets baptized. Angela, Alice and her family and Grandma and Grandpa come in from out of town and Nana and Papa and Lesley and her family are also in attendance. It was a great day and Madison looked beautiful!

Aug 14th: My mom came down to Tucson to watch my kids for over a week (who were starting school the next week) while we flew to Florida and set sail for the big Holman Cruise 2010! All of John's siblings and spouses surprised his mom for her 60th birthday. We had planned it a year before and had to keep it under wraps that whole time! We all met in Florida where we surprised her at dinner and announced the cruise to the western carribean. It was a great week and tons of fun. Thanks mom for babysitting and thanks Holmans for such a wonderful memory. We arrived home on Monday and went to the polls the next day.

August 24th: The big election day. We went to the booths and cast our vote and awaited the results. When they came in that night, we saw soon that it was a landslide and not in our favor. In the end John got about 25% of the votes and Keith Bee got the rest. Some have said that wasn't bad for the first time of throwing your hat in the ring. To us it felt like a big loss. I would have thought that the vote would reflect our efforts at least a little more but alas it is politics and it didn't happen for us. All in all I think it was a great experience and would never wish that we hadn't done it. How often do people try for something big in their lifetime? At least we tried.

the rest of the year: Once again we tried to figure out a different career for John. Nothing ever jumped out at us and ultimately he started applying for attorney positions. Because there wasn't a lot out there and we wanted to stay in Tucson, nothing came too quickly. In the end he took a job as an elevator operator at a constuction sight the beginning of December. It was a blessing because it was income. He worked a lot of overtime and was gone for 14 hrs every day.

Jan 2011: John worked 265 hours this month and more than made up for being home with us for so long. We missed him but were glad for the work.

Feb: John's position ended at the construction site (at this point, he was more of a safety guy than an elevator operator) and that afternoon he had an interview with the Santa Cruz County Attorney's office. The next day I enrolled in and started Real Estate school. Finally I was doing something I had wanted to do for about 7 yrs and had put off for various reasons.

March: John ended up getting the job as a prosecutor in Nogales and he started the end of Feb. I finished school just before he started. I took my exam and passed! Yay! and will be working with some friends here in Tucson on their Real Estate team. I am so happy to be doing it, I have loved house hunting ever since I did it for the first time in Bisbee in 2004. Maybe now if I can house hunt for other people we won't be moving so often. :) John works 4 10's so he has Fridays off which gives me another day to go and work in Real Estate. John has a long commute but is able to carpool and really likes the office and people at his job. I personally will be so happy to have real health insurance (something without a $7500 deductible) since we haven't had that since summer 2005. Also, it means we can get a loan for a house so you know what that means.

So there you have it, just a quick overall synopsis of 2010 without all the cute sayings or pictures of my 4 adorable kids. I have a great family and a great life. Maybe now that I've forced myself to start again, I can begin posting things like birthdays and holidays and start back up a record of our lives.