a year in photos part 1 (photos taken by me)

so i saw on another blog someone who posted one picture a month...their favorite picture or their favorite memory...to recap the year.  i wanted to do that, but i had such a hard time limiting it to just one!  so, i decided to split it into two sections.  the first (this one) being photos taken by me.  the second (soon to come) is photos taken by others, but with my camera. i also struggled between choosing my favorite memory from each month and my favorite picture.  sometimes they matched and sometimes they didn't.  hopefully the second set will reconcile these a bit, but the honorable mention might as well. 

so here they are, my favorite picture from each month of 2011.

january

 in january we hopped in a plane and flew to colorado for some skiing.  i had never seen the rockies up close before and they were glorious.  a whole different kind of beauty than the blue ridge.  we had an excellent time with luke’s family. 

february

in february luke had his lasic eye surgery. this is hands down my favorite picture of february because it cracks me up.  he had to wear these weird eye-protectors for two weeks after the surgery. 

march

in march two of my sisters came up to visit and we spent a lovely afternoon at eastern market.  the capitol hillbillies were playing and we listened for awhile.  this is probably my favorite picture that i took that afternoon.  i don’t remember much of march.  i think that jenny and her boyfriend also came up, but i just didn’t take many pictures.  march is also when i started a new full-time job, so the business might have something to do with it...

april

in april we moved from our first apartment together into a community home in anacostia.  we love our new home, and i honestly can't believe that we moved there in april...it seems like we've been there so long.  anyways, this was our very last picture together in our apartment before we turned the keys in.  good bye, rock creek church road ne!

may

in may my mom's side all got together to surprise my pappap on his 90th birthday.  it was a wonderful trip, and we all had a lot of fun.  i love this picture of my grandma and pappap during the flurry of pictures we were taking.  they are pretty cool and inspiring.

june

so much happened during the summer, and a lot of my honorable mentions will come from june, july and august.  however, this picture from june when our friend, kevin, came up to dc is probably my favorite.  during that visit we went to the zoo and went tubing (and i lost my tiny camera...) they are so comfortable in their masculinity...

july

july was another one of those months when so.much.happened.  during the fourth of july fireworks were going off EVERYWHERE.  there were some teens and kids setting these off in the alley behind our house and i joined in and took some pictures.  the kids would get up so close and then the sparks would fly and they would run away screaming.  time after time after time.  it was a lot of fun.

august

we spent the last half of july and august in india.  it was beautiful and so affirming of the call luke and i have felt for awhile now.  during our time in k-town we volunteered with the sisters of charity.  serving in this place taught me lessons that i am still learning about now.  this picture is also telling because of the crazy flood waters.  it was raining so hard!

september

i struggled with the picture for september because we had several great pictures.  but i think the most meaningful memory i had was our last baseball game in nats park.  we've had a could of "last" games because we always thought we would be leaving dc.  this one was indeed our last, for now.  we had a good time.

october

i took a lot of beautiful pictures on our annual apple picking event with jordan and valerie in october but this was my favorite. look at the excitement and the joy =)  i love them.

november

november was beautiful, with beautiful weather, beautiful leaves and beautiful people.  we had 16 people at our thanksgiving meal, plus one dog and one cat.  the weekend was fun.

december

thus far, december has been filled with hard stuff, good time with family and meaningful time with God.  i think the most uplifting time was the spiritual retreat we went on in mid-december.  this little kitten followed me around for the morning of our second day, but the time at corhaven, the spiritual retreat center, was refreshing.

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so those are my top 12 for the year.  a few honorable mentions include:

january honorable mention

another picture from telluride ski trip.

march honorable mention.

another picture from katie and christie's visit to dc and eastern market. 

may honorable mention.

a picture from our trip to pennsylvania.  i think this field is stunning.

july honorable mention.

luke and i celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a double header baseball game and a picnic.  it was perfect.

august honorable mention.

kites fling in delhi.  it was more beautiful than my little camera could capture.

september honorable mention.

we had our first block party.  the little girl on the left loved taking pictures with me camera.  this family was beautiful.

october honorable mention.

 we went to michigan for kali and charlie teater's wedding.  it was beautiful and they were sweet.  i really liked capturing both of them with their father's during the father-daughter dance.

november honorable mention.

we went to teddy roosavelt island to collect leaves for decorations and hike around.  this little boy wanted to do exactly what luke was doing but swore it was his own idea.  it was pretty cute.

november honorable mention.

 the beginning of the christmas season.  we went to the botanical gardens with our families the friday after thanksgiving to herald it in. it was a lot of fun and extremely beautiful.

december honorable mention.

celebrating ellen's birthday at the gaylord with the housemates.  we rode the elevator a couple of times so we could see the decorations from up high and ride the super-fast elevator.

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so there's the first round!  pictures taken by others to come shortly!