As I sit here on the last day of the 2009 I am reflecting on all that has happened and how little I have shared our lives, in that I have updated our website in almost 11 months so I thought I would go for a blog instead.
This year has kept us quite busy, I'm just going to highlight the 'high spots' in hopes that in 2010 I will stay more on top of our family's events and happenins. We started the year with our first vacation as a family of five to Gatlinburg Tennessee for a long weekend and Xander turning 9. In February, David's grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday. In March, Jared, David and 3 of our close friends went to Nicarauga on a mission's trip; Sara, Xander, my mom, sister, and niece met at the beach. April, Jared went on a school field trip for 3 days to Washington DC, David and I went away to the mountains to celebrate our 4th anniversary and Sara started crawling. May concluded Boy Scouts for the boys unitl fall, camped at Lake Wateree State Park with the Ruotolos, visited with the Langstines in Atlanta, and Sara's adoption was finanlly finalized. June was a month of celebrations with my mom's birthday, my sister's 30th birthday and Sara turned 1; and a weekend trip to Helen Georgia!!!! In July, my mom, and the three kids and I took off on a 10 day road trip; over 2500 miles to be exact. We left NC and headed to NY to visit with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandfather; from there we continued north to Vermont for a few days, stopped in Washington DC, and concluded with Ella's 1st birthday party. August we celebrated my birthday (we won't discuss what year) and Jared's 12th birthday and September we stayed close to home with school, scouts, and day to day life picking back up. October was a month of traveling HWY 74; the first weekend we were on the east coast at the beach and enjoyed having Ella for the weekend while Kelly and Scott were in a wedding and the following weekend we were in the mountains picking apples. November we celebrated National Adoption Day with CAS families and Thanksgiving. December concluded our year of enjoying experience fun times together as a family with going to see lights at Tanglewood, the Great Wolf Lodge (thanks to David's company), Jared's first band concert, and a week full of Christmas fun.
Oh course we had our not so fun times too; too many ear infections with Sara to count resulted in surgery just this month for tubes; and not once but twice in 10 days-- she is doing well now. (The rest either were so insignificant or I have just blocked them out:) But the one thing I can say is that throughout the year God richely blessed us this year with many of fun, laughter, joys, and excitement; wonderful times with family and friends; and an opportunity to see His hand at work in the lives of those closest to us.
I am so looking forward to 2010 and seeing what exciting things God reveals to us this year and the experiences and memories we make as a family. To start 2010 with fun and relaxation in just one week we're pulling the boys out of school for 3 days for family time as we spend a day at Disney before setting sail on the sea for 4 days.
