January - My 2011 began with my first car accident - nothing major luckily! Just a deer to the front end!
February - Brayton's venture towards Vet School got one step closer as he, Travis and I took a three day road trip to University of Prince Edward Island for his first Vet School interview...The view was nice, he did a great job - luckily we didn't end up there! And...I'd rather not talk about the trip...
I also was able to finish up my Master's Degree in Curriculum and Instruction during February! What a great feeling!
March - Brayton found out that he was accepted into Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine and that we would be moving to St. Kitts in the Caribbean for two and a half years! Big news!
While we were excited for moving to St Kitts, March also brought LOTS of snow, LOTS of shoveling and a long tough winter!
April - I do not think there was much eventfulness in our lives in April - other than the continual loads of wedding planning! Since Brayton found out he got into Ross, I had been working hard to try and get a teaching job there. I spent a lot of time making my portfolio Electronic and working on Jane! No time for events!
May - In May, my middle sister graduated from St John Fisher College in Rochester, a year early! I couldn't be more proud of her!
http://www.mywedding.com/braytonandleann/index.html - just found this! Totally forgot we even had that! Times goes by so fast!
I had my first wedding dress fitting in May....I soo LOVED my dress..It was perfect <3
Also in May, our good friends Jessie and Graeme got married, two months before us! We had a great time celebrating with them!
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| Jessie and Graeme <3 |
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| Us at the wedding! |
May also led me to do one of the hardest things I have done in a long time....I gave my horse away. There is nothing worse than taking an animal that has been your best friend, in your back yard, for 6 years, and dropping her off and walking away...I cried every day that week...I do have to say though, I am happy that she has a friend again, and is getting lots of love!
June - The end of June brought the end of my career at Indian River Middle School as a Middle School Special Education teacher...I had been there for 2 1/2 years and it was hard to leave, but I was very excited for the new things ahead of me which made it a bit easier! I do miss my friends and my students from there often though!
I was also able to celebrate a GREAT friends future baby girl, Mya, at her baby shower in June! I am so happy for Nikki and her beautiful little girl!
I also found out in June that I was offered an interview to the Ross Prep School in St Kitts and was asked to fly to Portland Oregon for an interview July 9th....5 days before my wedding! Of course, I couldn't say no, so I booked a plane ticket from Syracuse to Oregon and then from Oregon to Virginia and Brayton picked me up there to drive to NC to get married in 4 days!
July - WEDDING MONTH!! In addition to our wedding, our friend Jen got married at the end of the month! She had a beautiful wedding!
We were also lucky enough to do a maternity photo shoot with Nikki a few days before Mya was born! It was fun to play with our camera, experiment with our photo taking skills and see her look SO awesome in the last steps of her pregnancy!
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| Gorgeous pregnant girl! |
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| My favorite pic! |
And then there was OUR wedding.....I never thought it would come so fast! There was so much last minute planning - for the wedding and job interview and upcoming move to St Kitts a month later - that before we knew it we were dropping me at the airport to fly to Portland and Brayton and all our friends and family were piling into cars for the week in Outer Banks, NC!
The interview went really well - even though it was a very LONG two days of traveling! I even ended up getting the job and found out I would be teaching first and second grades! Yikes!
The week in the Outer Banks was one of the best times I could have asked for. We had an 8 bedroom house with all of our friends (and more friends and family close by) and played insane amounts of pool volleyball, drank lots of Margarita's, had a bachelor/bachelorette party...Rehearsal dinner, wedding on the beach (beyond perfect!) and a flawless reception. I can not thank my friends and family enough for making it the most PERFECT day of my life! ( And I guess my husband too =) )
If you haven't seen pictures, or want to look again - here is our photographers website:
http://www.alcweddingphotography.com/outer-banks/
Once there, Log in - Username: hillwedding
Password: braytonandleann
Once you are logged in there will either be two links on the bottom for Hall-Hill wedding and engagement session - click and view! If you need to enter a code it is: obx14711 =)
Following the NC vaca we headed back to NY and spent the remainder of our summer not working, boating, swimming, camping, drinking, relaxing and packing for St Kitts. It was BY FAR the best, most perfect summer of my life! I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends and family members and leaving them in August was terribly hard!
August - River...river...river...river...that is about it!
Aside from the shopping trips, to do lists, and packing involved in moving to St Kitts for two and a half years and having to find a way to get EVERYTHING into 7 suitcases!
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| 4 of the 7! |
It was another perfect summer month that came and went far too fast. Saying goodbye to everyone was really tough and involved a lot of tears! On August 22nd we left upstate NY for a while and headed to the big NYC (6 hours from OUR upstate!) and spent the night with Travis, Lyndi, Bit, Tim, Brayton and myself. We explored the city, ate lots of good food, had many good laughs and great times together before Brayton and I headed out!
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| Our last group shot before parting =( |
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| Yup we sure did push the two beds together and sleep 6 wide <3 |
August 25th came and we said our last 'see you laters' to our siblings...Far harder than ANYONE else to leave...I cried, a lot! And it lasted about 3 months! And off we went. We had an overnight layover in Miami and arrived in St Kitts the next day to begin our new adventure!
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| View from the plane...here we go! |
September - December - we were in full swing with school and teaching and quite busy! For full details on those 4 months, check back to the beginning of the blog =)
Our Christmas Card
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| The card - bad photo |
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| The photo on the card |
I guess looking back and recollecting - we had a pretty amazing year! I hope that 2012 can bring us more excitement while living for the next two years on St Kitts - but I really look forward to 2013 when we move back to the States and can hopefully add even more to our lives <3
Thank you again to my friends, new and old, and family, new and old, for all the love, support and great times you have given Brayton and I in the past year and all our lives! We love you all! Happy New Year and good wishes to everyone!
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