The sickness continues

As the new year kicks off, I was hoping for grand entrance for 2009 since 2008 was a bust...but sadly I've been battling a nasty cold in welcoming the new year. It feels like it's only been getting worse. Luckily I have meds and should be better in no time.
I didn't put out Christmas cards this year. I wasn't terribly motivated to figure out a picture to put on a card and then address all of the envelopes while trying to figure out gifts to get people. I know that millions of people do it every year, but I opted out. Maybe next year. I did, however, want to put out some sort of Christmas letter due to the crazy year we had. So why don't I just put it in my new found blog! What a great idea!?
We started of 2008 with a bang. We took a nice trip to Oakhurst, freezing our butts off but all managed to leave relatively unscathed. I got pitched off my quad for trying to do a donut, my dad twisted his knee, but Jason prevailed through it all! We were quite proud of him. In February I went part time at my counseling job in order to go back to college part time. Jason and I had decided for me to go back to school to pursue pre-nursing. I took 2 classes: Anatomy and Chemistry. I fought hard to get into the Chemistry class that was closed for 2 weeks! But persistance paid off, I got an A in that class and got a wonderful rave letter of recommendation from my prof.
Sadly, during that semester while dealing with school and part-time work, I was never home. Helen, my stepmom, went into the hospital for about 3 weeks. She had decided that she was going to stop chemo treatments. We all agreed and supported her decision but were sad to see her taken from us. I tried to go over to the hospital or to the house when she was on bedrest on my breaks from school. Sean was able to fly out for a few weeks to spend her last days at home. All of us kids and my dad were there when she passed. It was incredibly sad and tragic, but surprisingly peaceful as well. I miss her like crazy. It's been tough, I've never had someone close to me pass. I hope this won't happen again for a long time. Around this time also brought us some exciting stuff. We got our first puppy, Oslo in mid-april and I passed my MFT exam 2 days after my birthday! It was a long time coming and I'm so happy to be officially DONE with collecting hours and studying. Blah.
Summer brought us a few more trips to Rincon with my dad and Oakhurst for the 4th of July. I also got to do a quick trip to visit Joelle for Sex and the City weekend! It was fun to visit her while she was pregnant. Can't wait to do champagne nights again. In June I quit my job to take two more classes and go full time. I nearly went insane as I had the most jacked up professor for Physiology. Lets just say that 5 weeks of 9-1pm 5 days a week was MORE tedious than 5 weeks of 9-3pm 5 days a week. It was that bad. Pulled off an A in that class too! Whoo hoo!!
During the summer Jason was looking for a job as his game released and we thought it would be best that he find a job out of the house. We had a few leads that disappointed us but by the grace and chance of God, Jason found a job in San Diego! So two days after I took my finals, we hired 2 men to pack up our house and headed down to San Diego! Sadly, our first night of the move our dog Oslo got scared and managed to escape from our backyard. We were devestated as we were looking forward to having him in our big house with a big backyard.
Jason worked during the day and it was now my turn to find a job. God blessed us with leads and a job within a week of moving down here! Because of new hire paperwork, etc. it took FOREVER to start the job. Unfortunately, because they didn't work me as much as we needed financially, I had to look for another job.
After the move we decided that we needed to get involved in a church. We found North Coast Church which is a ginormous church down the road. They have these things called Growth Groups, which we decided to join immediately because we figured it was the only way we would meet people in such a big crowd. We were so blessed by doing so. Having people pray for you and keep you accountable has been a great thing for both Jason and I in our marriage.
In the meantime, taking us to October, we decided we really wanted to have another dog since we loved having Oslo around. I searched around for weeks waiting for the perfect dog. I was unsure about most that I found until I found this little black pup at the shelter. She had the cutest little face and as soon as I saw her it was like an "ah-ha!" moment. I put a hold on her and she was ours a week later. Heidi has blessed incredibly. She has such a sweet disposition and is our "snuggle pup".
I did manage to secure another job. God has totally blessed us with this position! The perks are awesome and it basically is doubling our income. I just finished my first month of training and have been getting great feedback. We got to have our white Christmas up in Oakhurst this year. It was beautiful arriving there while it was snowing. We made a snowman and I made a snow angel :). The year finished with both Jason and I getting sick, which could be indicitive of cleansing 2008 from us. I feel like we made a lot of progress in 2008, but am not sad to see it go at all. I hope 2009 brings us more blessings and happiness. Too many tears shed this year.

I will try to blog consistently and consisely...and I will do my best to condense it. I had a lot to say. Hehe.