2013 in Review

We didn't manage a Christmas card/letter this year...it is my goal to start as of next year (What? What's that you say? I say that every year?). So much happened this past year, I figured I should at least document it somewhere.

The other day I went running in our little town (Bad Windsheim, Germany). As I ran along the tractor trail and looked around me at the rolling farm hills, I couldn't believe that this is MY life. In 5th grade I distinctly remember my teacher asking each of us to tell where we would choose to go if we could go anywhere in the world...I had no answer. I couldn't think of anywhere I would go. (I'll blame that on my lack of imagination.) If someone had told me then, or even a few years ago, that this would be my life,  I never would've believed them. But here we are, having experiences of a lifetime. And it is amazing. God has been so good to us.

January:

We rang in the New Year with family visiting us in Hawaii!! My sisters came to visit and a few weeks later in January Dave's sister and brother-in-law (Marisa and Justin) came for a visit-somehow I have no proof of their visit unfortunately.

Landon and Izak played soccer with the locals. It was Landon's first time in an organized sport. 

February: 

Dave had a busy rotation in February,
but we found time for the beach when he was off.

Izak started cub scouts and loved his first pine wood derby.


                                     

Trip to Kauai-we loved the hike along
the Napali Coast

March:

Visit to the Big Island-It was so fun to see such diversity between the Big Island and Oahu-we all agreed that this hike across the crater was our favorite part of this island.

Lolo and I went on a quick trip to Utah. Lolo got to meet her fellow red headed cousins for the first time.

                                                                     APRIL:

April brought Becca and Jared for a visit. So fun to see and spend time with family!!

We were so excited to have our good friends Carolina and Marilu come visit us from Brasil!

We took a quick trip over to the island of Maui. It did not disappoint.

MAY:

We loved having my former companion, Betsy come visit. The boys love their Auntie Betsy!

The boys on their last day of school at Waiau Elementary (Kindergarten & 2nd grade)

JUNE:

In June we had to say goodbye to this beautiful island. We loved the year we had to live here!!

JULY:

Izak tried out for and made the swim team! It was so fun to see
him compete and improve on his swimming skills. He had a
blast doing it with his cousins Mara & Asher who were also
on the team.

Lolo and I flew back to visit Dave. We were lucky enough to get to meet up with my cousins Natalie & Dane (who happened to be there on vacation). It was so fun to see them!

We were so excited to get to meet up with our good friends,
the Youngs, from Arizona while in Utah! We also got
to meet up with some other AZ friends (yay Auprielle!)
but I forgot to get a picture....Love our AZ friends!!

The kids and I spent the summer in Utah while Dave went to Alabama for training to become a flight surgeon. We had a blast spending time with lots of family and friends. We made a quick weekend trip to Boise, ID to meet up with my side of the family to celebrate my brother PAUL coming home from his mission in Brasil!! It was SO fun to see him after 2 long years!!...somehow the picture on the right of Lolo is the only one I got of the whole trip. Since I was traveling alone with the kids, I was throwing any food possible at Lolo to keep her happy...this is what she looked like when we got there. 

AUGUST:

Lloyd family get together when Dave
flew into Utah.

We were so happy to be able to get together
with our longtime friends (Dave has
been friends with them since junior
high) when Dave came to Utah for a week.

 

Landon celebrated his 6th birthday!

Since so many Martells would not be going home
for Christmas this year, we all managed to
get together for "Christmas in August". We were
so grateful that we got to see everyone one last time
before heading to Germany.

Maama was so kind and let us crash for the summer at her
house, which is no small sacrifice of her when there
are 4 little kids involved. She is the best person ever to live
with!!! 

Dave planned a surprise date weekend for us when he got to Utah.
It was so kind of family to watch our kids so we could spend some
time alone before we headed out of the country....just don't ask Dave
why he'll never again take me shooting.

Saying goodbye to our amazing families was hardest this time, since we don't know the next time we will see them all again. We LOVED getting to see so much family before we started this next adventure in our lives.

Last night with the Gough cousins!

Monica came to the airport to see us off!

SEPTEMBER:

The bed & breakfast on the left is where we stayed for
a month until we were able to move into our house.
We were lucky enough to get the only "apartment" they had there.
 It worked great for our
family. 

The boys started school. It was the first time that
they would be starting at a military school on base.
They started just a few days after we flew into Germany, so they were still VERY tired from jet lag and the big time difference.

Our first outing as a family in Germany
-to Rothenburg.

We celebrated this cute little girl's 2nd birthday.
Somehow we forgot to take pictures, but we took the
kids to an indoor play place called "Krummeland". 

OCTOBER:

In October we took our first big trip and jumped
on a plane to visit London. 

We celebrated this little chica's 1st 
birthday. She is the perfect
addition to complete our family.

NOVEMBER:

My dad came to visit us. (Dad-I am so sorry for this
awesome picture that the boys took with the iPad.
Our computer broke and somehow this was the only
picture we could recover from your trip.) We LOVED
getting to see Papa!

 PARIS! We were able to go to Paris for Thanksgiving. I thought the city was GORGEOUS at night. We also took the kids to EuroDisney while we were there. 

DECEMBER:

 Izak celebrated his 9th birthday! We trade off between doing a family party and friends' party. This year was Izak's family part, but we agreed to let him have a few friends over just for a small celebration. And so glad we did, because his good friend Evan (just behind him in the photo) moved away just 2 months later. Such is life in the Army, but that doesn't make it any easier. Izak was so excited to get an iPod touch for his birthday. We LOVE this cute boy.

CHRISTMAS!! Our German neighbors were so kind and invited us to go to Christmas mass with them. It means so much to us that they try to include us in their traditions. We love getting to experience the German culture. In Germany, Christmas is celebrated on Christmas Eve. In the picture on the right, Lolo is checking out one of her presents on Christmas morning. It was the first time we celebrated Christmas with just our family. It was simple and beautiful. But we missed having lots of family around for the festivities.

 

Two days after Christmas we headed on a road trip. Our first stop on the way was the Neuchwanstein castle (Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle was mirrored off of this castle, as is the castle at Disney World). It was FREEZING that day, and poor Izak was SO sick, but it was gorgeous and really interesting to learn some of the history behind King Ludwig.

After the castle, we headed for Austria. We were planning on hitting some toboggan runs in Innsbruck, Austria, but there wasn't enough snow, so instead we had a snowball fight at the base of the Alp mountains with the man-made snow for the slopes.  It was a gorgeous city! It was a beautiful day so we took the kids to the zoo and they had a blast. Right before we went to Innsbruck my mom mentioned that out of all the places my granddad visited during WWII, he said Innsbruck was his favorite. It was neat to go there, thinking about him and wondering what it was like when he was there.

It has been an amazing year. We never could've imagined that this is where life would lead us at this time. It's funny how you plan out your life, do what's necessary to try and make it happen, are devastated when it doesn't happen according to your "plan", and then it turns out even better than you could have planned or imagined....here's to next year (or the 3/4 of the year that is left!)!

Sidenote: This blog looks so nice and neat when I composed it, but once I published it, it looks the way you see it...anyone have suggestions of a better format to use instead of blogger?? Or is it just me?