35 New Things

I have had a very new thing: my niece moved in! She's now living at the "bed and breakfast" which means my one room for playing bed and breakfast has been taken over with the nestings of a 17 year old. I love, love, LOVE that she is here. Since I haven't had children of my own...yet...there have been many new things. Here are some of the things we've gotten to do during the two months she's lived here:
1. Find a prom dress- that took us to new stores and I cried when we finally found the perfect one.
2. Bought a pair of silver shiny heels- they are for the perfect dress of course!
3. Went to Ultimate Tan for a package to prepare for the perfect dress :)
4. Been awake by 5:30 for an entire month! Now, I'm planning to use that time a bit more wisely than just trying to function!
5. Had someone to tuck in each night
6. Watched Mean Girls while holding a crying teenager and eating pizza
7. Seen Jersey Shore. Wow. I hope that doesn't happen again!

In addition to new things with the teenager, there have been other things during March:
8. Went to all the thrift stores in Bloomington in one day.
9. Ate at The Shack in Clinton
10. Welcomed a former player onto our coaching staff
11. Went to the Goodwill in Peoria, up Grandview Drive and to the park at the zoo

So, lots of changes around here but tons of fun. The best part of having the niece here is that we laugh so hard we cry almost nightly. She's an amazing kid. We are so blessed!

UPDATE:
Well, some of the new things that we had during the summer where moving a teenager out and having a broken heart about it. That was so hard but she's doing great and so are we...being aunts is much better! We did have some fun standing in line at an estate sale on morning, and can cross that off the bucket list. 2011 was pretty tough as we discovered Gracie has seizures and Otis ran away from home. We also lost our Aunt Caryn...no words for that one. I had my gall bladder removed during the fall. Not sure if that goes in the good or bad column. But we had a beautiful ceremony in our yard with all our loved ones, enjoyed becoming the resident artist at Kelly's, and hosted our first Tea Party! So, the good and bad balanced out in the end!!! We also got Eddie, the cat, as a Christmas present and he is filling voids we didn't know we had! The 35 New Things were not a challenge to accomplish at all!