If 2012 is the end of the world....

...Then I feel like we made good progress with making 2011 count (as our last full year on this earth)!  As you all know, "Big things to happen" was all about my goal to make 2010 count, and I think I did that well by finding the love of my life and somehow convincing him that it was a good idea for us to spend the rest of our lives together.  But 2011 really showed 2010 what big things are all about! I know everyone's going to make lists of how wonderful their year was, what their thankful for, and what their 2012 New Year's resolutions are, and I'm no different.  The year of 2011 was gigantic for our little family, when we actually stop and look back at it all....

Cheers to starting 2011 celebrating love!

January:

We rang in the new year in Savannah, celebrating Suzie & Joe's wedding!, and momentum just sped up from there.  Within a month of 2011 starting, I had rented the pod, put my notice in at the Marriott RTP (after almost four years of servitude working there!), begun interviewing for jobs in Jacksonville (that's another story entirely though!), moved out of the pod (thank you Mummy & Daddy for having me for a few weeks, it was lovely), and was preparing for a whole new life in Florida with the love of my life. 

February & March were spent moving, unpacking, talking the cats in to not killing each other, and finding me a new job.  I started working at the Renaissance at World Golf Village, which didn't last long, as I quickly received another offer to come and work at the Courtyard Oceanfront, my current work home!  We enjoyed the weather and made the most of our beautiful new beach surroundings!  April brought the start of wedding mania with Bridal Shower & Bachelorette/Bachelor weekends (amazing-see back to the blogs for details!), and an Easter trip to Raleigh to see family and pick up our marriage license!  And then the floor fell out, because we all didn't have enough going on already....

Moving in day!

Valentine's 2011

Drugged Georgie on the drive to Florida

April-May:
We found out Grangy wasn't well.  So not well that Mummy booked a flight to England to go and help him right away, only 4 weeks before the wedding.  Unprepared would be an understatement.  At no point in my neurotic, over-the-top organization of The.Best.Day.Ever. (which it was for us!) would I have imagined that everything would shift so quickly.  It was hard, to say the least.  Nana and Grangy were what I always hoped to be in my marriage-truly in love, with "real" moments to keep us humbled, a Scorpio & Cancer "love of a lifetime" kind of thing.  And I found my Cancer, which Grangy thought was great news, considering his granddaughter had been telling him for years that they were the best match in the Zodiac (I love love, what can I say, always have?!).  Losing Nana was incredibly hard in 2010, but the idea that I wouldn't get to see Grangy again or that he might not even get to meet Mike was unbearable.  We talked on the phone one day and he promised that he would be there when we got to England in June, but that he knew I would marry someone really wonderful and that I wouldn't pick anyone underserving.  Good news, he was right (most days ;) )!

Love these ladies (And William & Kate)!

Beerfest for Bride's!

May:
So in mix of everything, we finished wedding plans and everyone arrived in Raleigh for Memorial Day Weekend (including my Mummy coming back from England, with a possible worry that more ash clouds from Iceland might stop flights again, can you believe that that could happen two years in a row?!?!  And on our wedding week?!?!).  It was a wonderful weekend (see blog(s) about how much we loved everything and everyone!), and we still, to this day, couldn't be happier with our big day!!  We are so completely happy to be together and be married (when I'm not making Mike crazy), and we appreciate that fact almost every day still.  The day after the wedding, we got up, gushed about the wedding some more, had a delicious breakfast and then went to gather our things, as we had to drive back to Jacksonville that day. 

Panic, I think?! ;)

Mr. & Mrs. Mahoney!

We both had like 5 missed calls from my family members after breakfast-weird.  As it turns out, Grangy left us that morning to join his Joanie for their eternal dance together.  To this day, I can't put into words the excess of emotions that day.  Normal people don't celebrate the happiest day of their lives, followed by one of the saddest.  And happiest still, because we were so happy.  And saddest because now Mike really wasn't going to get to meet him and he really wasn't going to be in England when we got there.  In five weeks, we went from normal Bride psychosis to Bride psychosis and family loss, big style.  Cancer is terrible.

Grangy (left) xx

June:
After that weekend, we were a hop, skip and nine flights away from another amazing wedding in England and  Honeymoon in Ireland and Italy!  We had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back and do it all again someday, with more food & wind, and food & wine!  My husband plans the best honeymoons, if anyone ever needs his services?! :)

Second ceremony at St. Wilfrid's

Ireland-Christ Church



Rome!



Castalina, Tuscany :-)

July:
Back from the HM, we were home for about 3 seconds when Mike fell in love with a puppy on Craigslist and our life was forever changed.  Lloyd took over our home on June 26th (Grangy's birthday) and we haven't been allowed to be calm or quiet since!  We love our Donkey and are so glad to have him as our first married child!  On the pet front, we had to say goodbye to my first love, George, in September.  He died of cancer, and it was a short, terrible event also.  And that's enough of that for this year!

6 weeks old

Lloyd and George in August

Taken the last week of August-George's last week with us :-(

We've had so many trips, visitors and other fun things go on this year, it's hard to keep up (that's what regular blog posting is for, right?!)!  We definitely feel like 2011 was a year that counted in the "life events" department, to summarize:

New jobs
Moved=new home  TOGETHER (wow!)
Married
Honeymooned
Lost Grangy & George to cancer (I do realize these are not equal losses, but I'm grouping anyways)
Gained The Lloyd
Had lots of loved ones marry, engage, get pregnant!
Put THOUSANDS of miles on our cars (Orlando twice, Raleigh-a lot, Asheville twice, Savannah, Tampa, Charleston...)
And so many more things...

Orlando in August :-)

Christmas 2011

Thanksgiving-St. Augustine

Meghan & Steve's Engagement-December

2012 for the win!

I used to think that doing one of these things in a year would be big.  I'm stopping because this is WAAAY too long, but I just hope 2012 is as productive and adventurous as 2011 was!!  Having my best friend there for it all made every big and small thing even better (or at least more manageable), I'm such a lucky girl! :-)  And to all of my AMAZING friends, none of it would have been possible without all of your love and support-you're the best friends a girl can ask for!!

Love these ladies!

Love our family and their support in 2011!

Happy New Year from The Mahoney's!

Love.

The Boss

The Dictator

P.S. Thank you for reading this far, and for wading through all of the wordiness with me.  I am glad to finally write down some of the mixed emotions of the year, there's certainly been a lot (just ask Mike, poor baby).  But I think that life has balance, so really great kind of has to come with really bad-ideally just not at the same exact time-to keep things even.  Maybe, I don't know.

Just a tease of what's to come in 2012 :-)