As of about April last year, Lena and I had a physical 2015 calendar. We had been living together for a while by then, and we thought it would be a useful addition to our home. As is to be expected, we bought a kitten calendar.
As the year drew to its end, we agreed on the usefulness of the calendar and we decided to buy a new one. However, it took a while before we finally found the perfect calendar, which is why as of yesterday we have an awesome Simon’s Cat calendar.
One of the things we did was filling it with all important birthdays this year, which involved me going through our old calendar. Although we only started it in April, there are a lot of good memories I associated with the various appointments.
Which brings us to this post. About this time last year, I took a look at the year that had just passed and what I expected for the upcoming year in my first Turn of the Year.
Oh, how much I planned. And how much plans change during a year.
Let’s take a look at what happened, and what didn’t happen, this past year.
Early February: Lena moved in. Officially, it wasn’t until April that she was registered as living here, but as I got the entirety of February off, we thought it would be cool if she stayed over for a while. Turned out a while became a lot longer than we thought. It’s strange to imagine that at the start of 2015, we were still living apart. I’m very happy like this.
February 8: Onesie-cinema meet. We went to watch Spongebob The Movie in onesies. That was brilliant. Onesies are insanely comfortable and most people react very nicely (though some are just plain rotten). The movie was incredibly funny. All in all, a good meet.
February 20-21: Hearth’s Warming Con. Something that started all the way back in 2013 finally came to its conclusion. I’m glad to say that we were successful enough to have another go. Check www.hwcon.nl for everything about Hearth’s Warming Con 2016.
April 27: Lena officially moved in!
May 23: Eurovision Song festival. The first time I watched the entirety of the finals. I gotta admit, I’ve listened to a lot of those songs at work since then.
June 6: First visit of our new home. I remember this day. We were going to visit a friend for her birthday, but we decided to check a house first. The weather was beautiful. It was our first visit to a house, and we fell in love with it. But we didn’t dare imagine it would become our home.
July 30: Galacon. Another time visiting Galacon. It was good meeting old friends again, and I enjoyed my time as a volunteer. The Gala was amazing, with Lena and I “dancing” for the first time.
September 2: keys to our new house! Lena and I became home owners! It’s a big responsibility, but it comes with even bigger rewards: a place to completely call our own, as well as a solid investment in our future.
September 5: start of my week off of work. We originally planned to go hitch-hiking this week, but plans change and we put all our efforts into moving to our new home. We hoped to go hitch-hiking another time, but that may also change…
September 20: my birthday! There were many guests who visited us in our new house on my birthday. Both my family and a part of Lena’s family came over, meeting one another for the first time. They hit it off quite well, while we enjoyed the last barbecue of the season.
September 21: the strangest birthday gift I have ever received. On this day, we found out Lena is pregnant. We’re at week 19 right now, expecting to become parents either late May or early June. It’s very exciting, but also stressful. We thought owning a house was a big responsibility, but it pales in comparison to what’s ahead of us. But as long as all three of us are happy, everything will be fine.
September 30: the final day of Groenewold 222. Even though it was my first time living completely on my own, I don’t miss it. I got a house of my own in return. A house that I am happy to share with my amazing girlfriend.
October 5: my first week of 5 days. Well, actually… My first week of 5 days was the week of October 26. October 5th was the first week of getting paid for a 5-day week.
November 30: my first week as scrum master at work!
December 14: our first real vacation together. I really enjoyed Hamburg!
December 20: Christmas dinner. We invited friends over for a Raclette dinner (gourmet for the Dutchies), which was extremely fun. Definitely something we’ll host again next year.
December 31: first New Year’s in our new house. Again, with friends over. We have a small patch of grass behind our house, where we were able to see over all the houses and enjoy the fireworks everywhere we could see. We had a great time, even though I didn’t have much time off from work.
Looking back, I did do most of the things I planned to do, but the big things this year were merely the groundwork for what’s yet to come. Our new house, a baby underway… Our lives are rapidly changing and won’t stop changing in the upcoming years.
There will definitely be difficult times, but it will be worth it. I’m ready for the next year.