My important contribution to the barbecue experiment on Sunday.

Because most of your training for the Dales Way ended up looking like this, there will be buses and trains and taxis involved. You will feel like a cheater, but then you will take a nap.

I nearly didn’t make it up the mountain.

Even though it’s been unseasonably warm around here, there were still patches of ice along the trail, especially between the rocks of the scree field. I cussed and clambered and grumbled at J and threatened to quit a half-dozen times.

He laughed at me, then apologized when he realized just how scared I was.

Walking on ice.

Walking on rocks, walking up hills, is scary enough for this mouse. But there’s something about ice. Floridian to my core, I am certain that ice will get me. I’ll slip and shatter my new little camera and waste three years’ worth of orthodontia all in a go. When we first moved to New England, our very first winter, it was weeks before I’d complete the little trail to the waterfall behind our house, before I could believe that I wouldn’t somehow fall into the river on a walk with Bonnie and drown/freeze/die of sorrow.

Being brave is the hardest for me. I’m glad that I have J to coach me through, to love me right up a mountain, grumbling all the way.

For my 26th birthday:

• I slept until 8 — a feat I’d been unable to perform for the last week because I wake up early, like a little kid, whenever someone’s visiting and I’m excited.
• my in-laws gave me snowshoes, so I can become more outdoorsy and adventurous and learn to love Massachusetts Februarys (Februaries?).
• Beca ensured, as she does each year, that I do not leave the same six albums in our car’s CD player from year to year, and treated me to some killer Mexican.
• my 11-year-old sister-in-law called me and we talked about her visit in just a few short weeks.
• everyone’s favorite baby gifted me with spit up, all over my flannel shirt and, quite impressively, down my cleavage. Fortunately, I had this sweater with me, but the burp rag pictured came too late.
• J, of course, gave me my lovely new camera, and insisted I not do any Thanksgiving dishes on my birthday.
• Deb raced home from Thanksgiving vacation to share a margarita with me.
• I knocked out a fair bit of Christmas shopping with my worthy co-shopper Beca in Northampton but avoided most of the Black Friday insanity.
• The sun shined and we rejoiced in 60 degree weather.
• We dozed through Harry Potter 8.

GPOY with your parents

This was taken almost two years ago, when we’d first moved to the Valley, on my parents’ first visit. Since then, we’ve moved twice, I’ve earned most of a master’s, and we’ve significantly improved our financial situation. We’ve grown, I guess, though in less dramatic ways than our first year out of college, when we married and moved to Africa.

For one thing, I’ve learned to really love New England, despite my early fear of the cold. I feel stronger in real, tangible ways almost as significant as the ways I grew going away to college away, studying abroad, living in Uganda. I know how to handle icy bus stops and springtime mud and keep my heating bills down.

We’ve also found such good community here, something pretty rare, I’m told, in postgrad life. The permanence helps: as daunting as it was to move away from family for six years, it’s really been beneficial in building lasting friendships.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s been a good two years.

GPOY as a stylish toddler. Also, proof for Colleen that some babies’ eyes take forever to change; mine turned from blue to gray-green sometime around my second birthday. (Although I hope Augustine keeps his lovely baby blues forever.)

GPOYW in Montreal edition, as photographed by the talented Mr. C.

From the Fourth, after Bonnie made her first (and hopefully last) trip to the emergency vet. I was feeling crummy, too, so we stayed home and skipped fireworks this year.

GPOYW: family portrait edition.

GPOYW grab-the-nearest-giant-cat edition.

Do I repeat myself? Very well, then, I repeat myself.

You can tell I don’t upload pictures of myself much. But Beca did. (And her new layout doesn’t work in Safari, for the record.)