In my absence...

life happened. And there were way more ups than downs. And overall, 2013 was really, really, really good.

Let us recap, shall we?

January and February

By far the worst two months of 2013. And arguably, of our lives. Two words: Bar study. 

But the icing on the cake was that we got to be together. I traveled to Richmond with Eric, and we lived in a Hilton with Pierre for two months. We have such fond memories of that part of it!

 

March

 

We sold our first home in Tampa in a grand total of 16 hours, closed 3 weeks later, and moved to Charlotte, NC.

Those of you who have kept up with us for any length of time know that this was a move we really, really, really wanted to make.  I blogged about it at the end of this post two years ago, and it's surreal for me to go read the first five lines of this post from Christmas last year.  The fact that our move to Charlotte worked out so smoothly and quickly was such sweet affirmation for us that this is exactly where we are supposed to be. God works in big, small ways every. single. day.

In fact, our house sold so quickly, we didn't have time to find a house in Charlotte! So, we signed a short term lease on an apartment in Ballantyne and made the best out of living with half of our belongings in boxes for six months.

April

I found out that I passed the North Carolina Bar Exam. Praise Jesus.

 

We celebrated our third wedding anniversary in the Provence region of France on 4/23. 

 You can see my travel posts on: 

Gordes (pictured above) and other small villages in the Luberon region here and here.

Nice, France here

May

We rounded out our vacation with a week in Italy. You can see my travel posts on:

The Cinque Terre here, here and here

Venice here and here

We celebrated Pierre's third birthday, and the one year anniversary of his adoption on May 10!

June

We took a mini vacay to Fort Lauderdale to see our good friend/Eric's coworker get married, and celebrated Eric's birthday.

July

We spent a good bit of time just exploring Charlotte, finding new eats, and doing some hiking.  More importantly,  we celebrated Pierre's big graduation from Level One Behavior Buddies Class.

August

I officially opened doors on The Ferri Law Practice, PLLC at the beginning of the month.

And then we went to Ohio, basset hound in tow, to visit our (blog turned real-life) friends Sarah, Mister, and Floyd!

September

We took another vacation and explored the West Coast (our first time!) for a week.  You can see my travel post on Napa Valley here. While we were there we found out that Eric got a promotion at work, and Napa was such a fun place to celebrate!

 Later in the month, we celebrated my Nana and Papa's 50th wedding anniversary at home with our family and all of their friends.

October and November

We THOROUGHLY enjoyed being back in a state that has seasons for autumn this year!  We spent a considerable amount of time hiking with friends and enjoying the awesome weather and foliage that NC has to offer.

Our apartment lease ended in November, so I spent an entire day out in early October with our realtor (and friend) looking at about 20 homes.  I took Eric back to see one. He was sold, we put in an offer, and we closed on November 15th!  We are so in love with the house's potential (did someone say finished BASEMENT?) and our neighborhood! Definitely a home we plan to grow into for the next twenty years or so. More on this later, promise.

On closing day!

We spent Thanksgiving with Eric's family in Simpsonville again this year, and it was SO NICE to only have an hour and a half to drive instead of 9!

December

This was the first year in a VERY long time that I have gotten Christmas cards out before Dec. 20th and truly enjoyed the Christmas season and all the anticipation/preparation that it brings.  (Law school exams make it incredibly hard to do that.)

 

We were so thrilled to have Christmas in our own home for the very first time! No more driving to someone else's house that's 9 hours away! If having Pierre is this much fun on Christmas morning, then I seriously cannot imagine the joy that having children will bring. 

We hosted a pancake bar/brunch, and my family came up later on Christmas morning to celebrate.  As usual, Pierre stole the show! My mother's dream is to have a grandchild with only two legs one day.  For now, she gets her practice with Pierre ;)

And last, but OHMYGOSH, certainly not least - I got the biggest surprise of my life for New Year's Eve.  Any of you who follow Kait and Sarah (or follow any of the three of us on Instagram) already know that they drove 8 hours to my house and showed up on my doorstep on Monday night. And rang the doorbell. Out of the blue. While I was cooking and doing laundry. WITH MISTER AND DANE IN TOW! AND FLOYD!!!!

And there was screaming and barking and jumping and lots of wine. And the six of us had the absolute best time. I mean, we really did. You'll get a full recap of our shenanigans tomorrow but this event DEFINITELY earned a place on the 2013 recap. And it was the best, the very best, way to start out 2014. 

So there you are! The highlights of the Ferri family in 2013!

2014 is bound to be a good one folks.