2010 is over!

It's officially 2011 and I could not be happier about it. I've never looked forward to a new year so much. It's just that...in some ways...2010 was hard on me! It started off great with a road-trip down to Florida to spend some time at my Grandparent's other house.

Florida bird at the beach

February was full of dancing and revelry with friends. Ben was cold but loving his job in Cambridge working with the homeless people on substances. I was buy writing my capstone paper!

rockin out in Boston

March meant going to Greenwich to spend time with the family for mine and my aunt's birthday (March 29th).

Ben defeated

And in April Boston bloomed.

flowers in the commons

In May I came to New Orleans for the first time for a quick weekend to choose our apartment. I should have been excited but that weekend was incredibly stressful and began a long process of me trying to process leaving everything and becoming a southerner. 

streetcar passing our bed and breakfast

In June, I graduated from MSPP with my masters degree! It was bittersweet as I loved being in school and graduating meant saying goodbye to all of my best friends. But my family came up and it was a really good time. 

wish I had fixed my cape thingy for this photo

 In July we said goodbye to everyone we knew and moved to New Orleans! We also got to come back (to NH) at the end of that month to go to Ben's mom's wedding. We went to the beach and saw one of my bff's!

dancing in the chilly summer air

In August we sweated it out in nola. We found our way around and set up our home on our own. We ate a lot and we went to a few festivals. We also travelled to Michigan for my family's big reunion.

my cousins are trained to pose upon request

In September I continued to cook and bake a lot. Without a job and not starting school I started to get frustrated. But we had fun too. 

southern magnolia in my neighborhood

October brought Voodoo fest with it! Three full straight days of music. We also flew to Kentucky to visit Ben's dad and Sally there. We had a lot of fun those first few months in Nola. 

above ground graves may be the only kind here

In November Ben was all settled in school and I started an office job on the first. Suddenly I had somewhere to be every day from 8-5 and things changed a lot. But we still had loads of fun. My grandma surprised us by flying down and staying with us! 

some lower ninth group in the french quarter

And, finally, there was December. In December we were very stressed. My job wouldn't give me any time off. We had no money to fly home. It definitely felt like the negative aspects of living down here were piling up. But, we pulled through it and even got to see our family in CT and Ben's mom! The year ended with us having airline drama and both getting pretty sick with the flu. But the good definitely outweighed the bad.

my cousin Katie by the tree

Now...it's 2011! We rang in the New Year doing exactly what we wanted with our friends in our home in New Orleans. I made a long list of goals and have been starting on them. The weather down here is gorgeous right now and we're both enjoying the fresh start a new year provides.