2019. The Year of Trust.

It really doesn’t feel like the end of the year, but my calendar tells me the end of the year is literally right around the corner so here we are. Truthfully, I am not ready for all that comes along with a new year, let alone a new decade. I feel like I haven’t really had or given myself the time to close the chapter that is this year, let alone this decade. And until I can reflect on everything that happened in this last year and last ten years, I won’t be ready to rah rah into 2020. And that is okay in my book.

I am starting to realize that the time in between the Holidays and the New Year just isn’t the right or enough time for me to reflect and process through everything in order to welcome in a New Year with a bang. It took me until about March last year before I finally came around to “goal setting” and looking forward to a fresh new year. I share all of this simply because if you aren’t feeling this new year, let alone a new decade – you aren’t alone.

It is at times like these that I am thankful that I have been consistent in writing a year-end wrap up for almost the entire decade. It makes it easier to look back and reflect. 2011 was the year of social media. 2012 was the year of love. 2013 was the year of marriage. 2014 was the year of the home. 2015 was the breather year. 2016 was the year of being present. 2017 was the year of Levi. And 2018 was the year of intention.

This year was hard, it was plain hard. In so many ways. But if there’s one thing that we learned universally this year it is trust. Trust in the process, trust in the plan. Even when the outlook looks bleak and there is literally nothing else you can do, trust. And then trust some more.

I started this year off struggling with accepting God’s plan for our family as I had just experienced a miscarriage. While I knew God has the ultimate power to bring forth life and perform miracles (much like He did with Levi), I struggled with accepting the fact that He took life from us, especially one that we so desperately wanted and continually prayed for. I spent much of the first of the year really battling with God and finding my way back to embracing His plan even when I don’t understand it and ultimately trusting in the path He has set for us.

Mark and I started the new year off taking a weekend in Fargo while he humored me in doing all the things I love to do. We ate fancy meals, shopped downtown, and stayed at the boutique hotel downtown. It was the perfect weekend and much needed during a time where I just needed his comfort. We had some really good conversations as we sat in our room and enjoyed adult beverages. Sometimes, it is good to getaway. To get out of your day to day reality and just be with one another to check-in, dream, and plan the future together.

Our annual get out of the frozen Tundra trip this year was to Key West. We rented a house with seven other couples whom we are in business with. It was incredible and so much fun. The most amazing part about it all was that there was literally zero drama, which never happens when you get that many people together. We walked away from that trip feeling blessed to be in business and in friendship (like family really) with so many incredible people. People who share our triumphs, but also are there for us in our tragedies.

February and March mostly marked a lot of just living and enjoying our Levi man as he keeps us laughing daily. My parents came to visit in February and it is always a good time when Poppa and Grammy come to visit. In March we got away to visit friends in Montana – Levi’s second trip out there. And literally every time we’ve gone out there it’s been a shit show. This time Levi got sick and ended up with a double ear infection. He was literally dead to the world and so out of sorts the majority of the time we were there, which of course put my anxiety through the roof. We joke that someday we will go to Montana and the kid will actually have a good time while we are there.

In March, we had to take an unplanned trip to California to say goodbye to my Grandma Betty, my last remaining grandparent. Even though she was ready and she is now finally with Grandpa, it was still hard to say goodbye. She was my last, the last of that generation in my life. And having Levi made it even harder because he stills remembers Gigi. And I pray he never forgets who she is.

April and May I was itching for the snow to melt and to get out in the yard. I finally decided to tackle some landscaping in our yard and while I awaited the snow to melt and it to warm up, I was making allllll the plans. I did successfully get one planter bed built and hopefully this spring it’ll get planted. We will see what kind of progress I make on the other planter bed. After five years of living in our house with nothing on the walls in there, I decided to finally do something with Levi’s bathroom and redesigned it. It is very Old West meets Boho and is perfect. Levi loves the painting of the “cowboy” in there.

Spring came and promptly warmed up and work in the field began. And literally did not end. If you’ve been following the news, I’m sure you’ve heard that farming this year for many people was tough. We experienced a wet, wet spring with many unplanted acres and then experienced a freakishly wet fall that did not end. Thanks to perseverance and taking small windows of time when the weather was favorable, we actually finished up harvest by December 27^th. You read that right DECEMBER 27^th. In the history of his farming career, my father-in-law has never recalled harvesting into December. But we got it done and we won’t have to fight it this spring when it will undoubtedly just as wet as it was this fall, if not worse.

It was hard on everyone to have the stress of harvest lingering on for months along with the uncertainty of what to do – wait it out or wait for spring. And as a wife, it is not easy to watch your father-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband literally labor so hard over all of it. There were MANY more prayers said this year about farming and crops and asking for trust in the midst of pure uncertainty.

With the conditions this fall paired with poor grain markets, mental health became a real concern and personally, I am still fearful of the effects of this year on our farming community and its people. Time and time again, I just keep trying to stress how needed each and every person is and how much more value a farmer brings than just his crop. Thankfully in our own family, we bonded together in times of despair. We spent a lot of weekends sharing a table together and having a meal and just listening to one another. Sometimes all you need is validation and someone to just listen.

Levi and I spent much of the summer outside. That kid loves to be outside, rain or shine – sun or snow. He logged a lot of hours on his swing set and going down the slide. Next year I fully expect him to start learning how to pump himself on the swing.

In July Levi and I took our first trip solo out to California. We celebrated the 4^th of July with my family. Levi loved the time in the pool and outside in small doses. That kid is North Dakotan like his daddy and he didn’t enjoy the heat. At the end of July, we were able to squeeze in a road trip to Indiana to visit some friends (and pick up an air compressor Mark bought). It was Levi’s first long haul road trip and he did amazing. We stopped at parks every couple of hours where he could run around, climb, and go down slides. We plotted our trip to include a stop at the Omaha Zoo, which Levi loved. I also brought back with me one amazing yellow vintage couch for our patio which my friend in Indiana hawked out for me. If that isn’t friendship, I don’t know what is.

In August, I got away to Texas to enjoy time with one of my dearest friends, Nicole, and of course enjoyed too many margaritas and all the good Mexican food. We enjoyed time with Mark’s whole family as they made their annual summer visit to the farm. Levi loves the time he gets to spend with all of his cousins and it becomes a madhouse with seven grandkids running around Grandma’s house.

In September we celebrated Levi turning two with our family. His birthday was perfect although we cannot believe he is two. He has officially become a big boy now and is sleeping in a big boy bed, which he loves. Later in September I was able to sneak away for a girl’s weekend with Kelly and Kellie in Minnesota. We rented the cutest little Airbnb in Brainerd – right on the lake and enjoyed the peaceful serene fall in Minnesota.

We got a freak early blizzard in early October that dumped over a foot of snow, which put a huge wrench in harvest and also made a wet fall even more interesting. Despite the blizzard and snow, we were able to celebrate Grandpa Claude’s 93^rd birthday with him in the nursing home. Getting to see him is becoming harder and harder, but at the same time more and more important as time with him is getting less as he ages.

My word of the year this year was peace. I started the year off really unsettled, upset, and just wanting to seek a deep inner peace. A peace of accepting my right now, a peace of accepting God’s plan for our lives, a peace of truly being content in this moment. And it took until October, but I finally found it. I attended the Thirst Eucharist Conference in Bismarck (a Catholic conference put on the Diocese of Bismarck) and the event was amazing. I went to Confession there as well as attended Adoration for the first time ever. And I walked away from the event feeling very much validated in my feelings and emotions from the year, but also with a sense of peace that God is in control. And although He knows about my anger and my frustration, He is still so graceful to come alongside me and wait for me to return back into trusting in Him and His plan. I walked away at peace with our lives, despite the hard. I walked away at peace with embracing whatever God brought our way.

And after months of struggling with the why, it finally all made sense. God needed me to walk the path I walked because He needed me to learn the things, I learned in that time in order to accept what He was about to give us. He needed me to find that inner peace I had been searching for and cling to Him fully trusting in His plan. Because what He was about to do next was going to blow our minds. And it did.

In mid-November, upon months of trying without success and in the midst of the most stressful and insane harvest to date, we found out I was pregnant. And much like when you experience a loss and infertility, it sucks the joy out of the truth of it all. At first, I didn’t believe it – didn’t believe it was possible and that it was going to happen for us this time. But we made it until my doctor’s appointment in December and saw that sweet little babe’s heartbeat fluttering away. God willing, we will be having a new family member join us in July next year. Levi will officially be a big brother, even though he hasn’t fully come around to the idea yet. He still sometimes tells me “no baby”, but I know he will be the best big brother, ever.

The next couple weeks literally felt like a whirlwind of travel for Thanksgiving to California, being exhausted trying to grow a new life, and celebrating the Holidays with family and friends. And here we are. Trying to recover from all of it and slowly gaining a little more energy as I inch closer to the second trimester.

As I sit down and reflect on not only this year but also the last ten years, I truly wonder if there will be another decade of years more formidable than these. These years were the ones that put into motion everything that has made me who I am today. Shortly after the turn of the last decade, I met Mark at a time when I was signing off on relationships completely. Within a year I was living in North Dakota engaged to be married. We got married and literally established roots by building a home – a forever home here. We walked the path of infertility until finally a miracle happened and I became a mom to Levi. Shortly after Levi, God placed a call upon my heart to join the Catholic Church and last year I became Catholic.

All of those things that happened in those years have molded and formed me into the woman I am today. They have helped me form my identity, but most importantly, one I am confident in, at peace with, and even joyful over. But that isn’t to say that it didn’t come without any pain or suffering. There was a lot of painful moments, there was a lot of questioning and uncertainty, and there was a lot of frustration as I struggled with what exactly God was calling me to. Ultimately though, all of those things have also pointed me towards trust. Trusting in the plan He has laid out. And honestly, His plan has been far greater than I could have ever imagined for my own life.

As I get older, I am beginning to learn that nothing in life that is worth it comes without hardship. We all experience pain and difficult circumstances – we all walk in valleys at times. But it is through our perseverance, our ability to keep sight of our blessings and hold tight to trust even in the most difficult of times, that we become the best versions of ourselves. We stretch and grow more than we ever realized we could, and we built tenacity and strength in knowing that we can do hard things. But the icing on the cake comes in realizing that although hard may be universal, it isn’t permanent. 

So, my friends I invite you as we bring in a new year and a new decade, make it a formidable one. Make it one where you leaned into the hard and the difficult and the icky feelings. Face it. Stumble. Cry some tears, maybe a lot of tears. But face it. Become the best version of yourself by letting yourself do hard things but know that hard isn’t permanent. There are always mountains at the end of a valley.

Here’s to saying goodbye to 2019 and hello to 2020.