Well, tonight we say good-bye to a rather tumultuous year, at least for our clan. We saw the loss of a job, an unanticipated move, the gain of a job, the blessing of a better place to live and the great blessing of another child. There were also the incidental victories. I got my second Bag ‘o Crap from Woot and I and won my fantasy football league.
Looking back at the year, I feel the same way a forest must feel after a fire. The fire hurt, but now there is room for growth and renewal. In 2009 Sammy will start kindergarten and Mary will start pre-school. I will continue (God willing) in my new job and Casey’s Speech-Pathology practice serving the Catholic Schools will grow. We will wrap up the year with our first Christmas in Boise and our first Christmas in Idaho since Casey and I were married.
We lost our dog, Cassie this year. She was a good dog. A good dog. Noelle started wearing an eye patch to help with her Anisometropic Amblyopia. For each day she wears her patch, she gets a gold dollar to use to buy a hamster. The hamster won’t live as long as the dog (at least I hope not. I don’t want a 16 year old hamster).
We are going to strive to cut our current garbage output from four bags a week to three bags. We have cloth diapers for Leela and Mary will be potty-trained this year. We tried last year, but it just didn’t take. Too much going on.
We replaced our dinner table one that will allow us to seat all six people and keep food on the table. That may not sound like much, but it is really a huge deal to us. Ralphie and Steve were nice enough to provide the table.
Ralphie was able to spend a month with us while Leela finished cooking. The kids loved having Grandma Ralphie around for so long. So did we. Mary is still asking, ‘Where did Ralphie go?’.
This year my blog enters its third year and I will pass the 100 post mark. I don’t know if that is really a big deal, but hey, I am running out things to say.
I hope all of you have a wonderful 2009 and that it is full of the Lord’s blessings.
And so it goes.
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