Tuesday 20 January 2015

2014 in numbers

Another year has gone, so as is tradition, I've written another yearly review. It has been a varied year to say the least; the highs have been very high, and the lows very low. 


+1, 8:28 
On the morning of the first of March, we added one to our growing family and welcomed Evelyn to the world at 8:28 AM. Unlike Kaleb, we went home with Evelyn that evening. 




She has grown up so fast in the last ten months. She absolutely adores Kaleb and learnt to crawl quite quickly, I think just so she could follow him around. Kaleb usually gets on well with her; they like playing together, although Kaleb still likes to play on his own sometimes. 





2
In addition to May containing my birthday, Kaleb's birthday and my Mum's birthday, we also went to 2 Weddings. 

The first was my aunt getting married to Dawn, which was all the way up in Newcastle in a lighthouse. Kaleb had fun playing in the sand, this being the first time he had been on a beach. Dinner was fish and chips, with a sandcastle cake later on. 





The second Wedding was my cousin getting married to Ian. Again Kaleb had a lot of fun, and another very tiring day. Kaleb ended the night asleep on me in the lobby by the door. 





-1
At the end of August, my Grandad sadly passed away. I'm happy he was able to meet my children, even if it was only for a few months in the case of Evelyn. 

1st
The first long holiday the children had was at Weymouth in September. Kaleb had fun again on the beach, and even went on a donkey ride. Chris and Jenny could only stay for the weekend, but we're planning on going back again this year, staying at the same place, but Chris and Jenny will be able to stay for the whole week this time, which will be nice. 




12
In September, we had a visit from our friend Hannah for 4 days; in the couple of years we've lived in Flitwick she is the 1st non-family member to stay over. 

For the end of September the weather was really nice, so we had 1 last BBQ in the garden for the year. We also had a wander around the nearby woods (with 1 scraped knee from an excited Kaleb walking there, which he still occasionally remembers for some reason). I finally got around to using the Story-cubes I got a while back, which was a lot of fun (a bunch of dice with different images on them; you roll the dice and make up a story using the images 1 at a time). Hopefully soon the 4 of us will visit her and go to the zoo. 




4.3
As part of my university course, I did a placement year at Anritsu. After I completed my Masters, I was invited back to work there, and had been doing so for the last 4 years and 3 months, until November when myself and what was left of the team I was on was made redundant. 

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 42
I started looking for a new job straight away. There is a bit of a lull in job postings in November/December time, and I wanted to make sure I found a good place to work so researched anywhere I was going to apply in advance. I applied for jobs at 5 different companies for a range of roles that I am capable of and heard back from 4 of them, leading to 3 interviews. I hadn't been in an interview since I was looking for a placement job in Uni, but all the ones I went to had a similar format (2 people asking me technical questions). I must have done well at them as just before Christmas I had 1 offer, so I'll be back working soon. 

Considering the time of year, I think 42 days to find a job isn't that bad really. Since I started school as a child, I've always been in Education or Employment (or had a planned date to start either), so this has been the longest (well, and only) time since when I've been in neither (and had nothing planned). 

9
On Christmas Day, we had a house full of 9 people over for dinner. It was a very busy day, but we purposefully didn't plan too much so we weren't rushing at all, which made the day enjoyable. The kids liked opening presents (even if they had to finish opening some on Boxing Day). 




23
We went to my Dad's house for Boxing Day, where at one point there were 23 people there. Another busy day seeing lots of family; that weekend kids had a long sleep after two tiring days in a row. 




365
Ended the year with a quiet evening in with Liz (candlelit dinner, an old film, reflecting on the year just gone). 

2015 is the first year that I can remember that I don't have a vague idea on how it will turn out. It's starting off well with a new job, so hopefully everything will be good throughout. 

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