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2023: Our Year

This is the yearly roundup post - as I've done almost every year for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 seems to be skipped as I got to grips with mothering two little ones, and 2015.

2023 was, for us, a year of highlights and milestones as well as getting on with life and growing. 

Milestones

This year, Mr. and I were married for the third (!) time, almost exactly ten years after we first tied the knot. Some of the background (and lots more pictures) about this is here - in short, our three weddings were firstly the Register Office legal wedding that only Mr.'s parents attended as witnesses; secondly the church wedding at City Church where we invited everyone, also in 2013; and now, finally, following the annulment of Mr's previous marriages, we made our marriage sacramental by having it convalidated in the Catholic Church.



2023 was also the year that saw N(9)'s First Holy Communion. A beautiful celebration of her now being old enough to understand and begin to appreciate the tremendousness of God's gift of himself. This coming year of 2024 it'll be D(7)'s turn and I can't wait.

I'm really aware that I never wrote a post about why we became Catholic, despite mentioning my intention to write about it several times. It's getting harder and harder as time goes on, as I get more distance from where we used to be and what we used to believe. The reasons we went were manifold then, and have only multiplied since... so it's really tough to try and condense it all into a blog post. A paradigm shift is just not that simple to summarise. There are of course great books on the topic, which explain things much better than I ever could - I would recommend authors Scott Hahn or Rod Bennett (my favourite!), or podcasts such as The Cordial Catholic or Shameless Popery, if anyone is curious. I honestly don't think I'll ever get around to writing that blog post about my own journey, having now been at that destination for three years.




Birthdays happened too of course, D turned 7 and N turned 9 - I wrote blog posts about each of them.

And then there was Baby no. 3 who surprised us, turned our world upside down for a little while, but sadly couldn't stay; they took a shortcut to Heaven instead. Another milestone in a way, as I had never lost a baby before... I would have loved to get to know them, but now I'll have to wait to meet them in Heaven. 

Travels

We went to Spain early in 2023, seeking some winter sun and finding mostly rain... but hey, it was a break and lovely family time with the kids' grandparents.

Windswept!

There's a whole series of blog posts about Vienna, as I put one up for each week - so many photos, so many things we did! The series starts here. The main things that happened was that my mother's best friend, whom we made a point of seeing every summer, sadly died while we were here and we were unable to see him this year; and much deep connection with family. My sister, my father's sister, and my cousin are the relatives I always make sure to visit when we're there and we have deep, long, healing and connecting conversations. 



Of course, Vienna is also about connecting the kids to my half of their identity, helping them to become familiar with the city and people as well as, of course, the language. My resolution for 2024 as for every year is to speak more German to them while in England, but that continues to be difficult as I'm surrounded by English and think in English too... and the yearly six weeks in Austria truly do help to offset that, as they come back that much more fluent every time. They are clearly more comfortable in English, of course, but every summer enriches their vocabulary. 

Finally, after the long stay in Vienna we had almost a week in Sweden where I worked and the kids had quality time with Mr. - this was very much in the countryside of Sweden, far from the big city, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Education

Everything we do is education, of course, but in 2023 I wrote a few blog posts on the topic -

Other Posts

I've also put up blog posts here, as always, to think things through deeply - from not being home enough, to my failures as a parent... this life is beautiful, a blessed privilege that we have, and I want to be as intentional with these years as I can possibly be. The children deserve nothing less.



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Comments

  1. Anonymous28 December 2023 at 15:54

    Die Kinder werden es Dir einmal sehr danken, dass Du den gemeinsamen Lebensweg in Worte gefasst hast.

    ReplyDelete

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