A Memorable 2014

2014 was a memorable year for the Stingerie family - we did lots of traveling (both around Norway and Europe), celebrated our daughter's first birthday, and learned some exciting news of expanding our family in 2015 by not one, but two babies! I'd venture to say 2014 was a bit tamer than 2015 will be despite a big slow-down in our globe trotting! :-)

So before we ring in the New Year with friends, here's some highlights from 2014 -

January

After spending the whole month of December in the States, we returned to Norway. I had a couple more weeks at home with Madi before I returned to work part-time. It was a hard transition for sure, but Madi did wonderfully with her nanny, Miss Sally.

February

Lots of joy and lots of pain this month - Madi said her first word (Da Da) and had her first serious injury. She burned her hand on one of the heaters in our apartment and got second degree burns and a nice boxing glove to wear for a few weeks. Her hand healed perfectly and she has no scarring and perfect usage.

March

At the very end of February/beginning of March we moved! We're still in Norway, but moved to a larger home much closer to work. It's lovely and we are soooo happy we moved! (View our Tananger home here, Part 1 and Part 2).

April

We had such fun in April! Over the Easter holiday we booked a cruise around Greece and it was absolutely magical! Madi had a blast and we enjoyed getting to see different places without having to pack and unpack a bunch of times. Plus she was a big hit on the boat and made lots of friends! :-) We also kicked off a summer of Norwegian hiking with a nice and easy view of Stavanger from Dalsnuten.

May

I celebrated my first Mother's Day with a precious video from my hubby (who was away for work on the actual day). We also took a short trip to Finland and got ready for our big trip to the States for Madi's baptism!

June

Madi was baptized at our home church in Houston, CEPC, amongst family and friends. We had a wonderful reception afterwards and spent the rest of our visit seeing as many people as we could. We returned home to Norway a week and half before Madi's first birthday and celebrated with friends here. Madi also got her first set of wheels, courtesy of Daddy. ;-)

July

This month we made the rounds on famous Norwegian hikes in the area. We had an unusually warm summer and Lily, Jason's little sister, came to visit and watch Madi for a few weeks. We had fun visiting Flor & Fjaere, hiking Maanafossen, Preikestolen, and Kjerag (Part 1 and Part 2) together.

August

It was a busy month as Jason went offshore for almost two weeks this month. Fortunately, he made it back onshore in time for our sixth wedding anniversary. ;-) We also said goodbye to Miss Sally (our nanny) as Madi began barnehage (daycare). She made a smooth transition over, but definitely misses her. I also went back to work full-time after enjoying four-day work weeks (and an extra Madi snuggle day) for most of the year.

September

We took a family vacation to the Canary Islands and enjoyed some warm beach weather! The rest of the month was pretty quiet with work and getting into a new routine with barnehage. 

October

I kicked off the month hiking one of the hardest hikes I've ever done to-date: Trolltunga. It was an 8.5 hour hike that I did sans Madi and Daddy. A couple girlfriends were going and we planned to start trying soon for another baby so Jason encouraged me to take the chance to go while I could. So glad I did!

Later that month, we headed back to Spain, but the main country this time. We attended the World Rally Championship outside Barcelona and enjoyed showing Madi her first car race.

November

We had a fun November celebrating my birthday with Grandma here for a visit! We also found out this month that we were expecting, but weren't quite ready to share the news. :-)

December

We got the surprise of our lives when the doctor told me at the 8-week ultrasound that there was not one, but two babies! We had already done big sister reveal photos with Madi and used them to make this announcement.

Good-bye 2014! You were an amazing year, but we can't wait to see what 2015 has in store for us! :-)