Happy New Year!

Welcome 2009! For obvious reasons, I'm pretty excited about this coming year. I have to say, though, that I really enjoyed 2008. It was a hard year, but we did some incredible things, had a few great adventures and learned a lot about how much we can handle, more about the Lord and more about ourselves. I'd say that's quite a successful year.

To recap, here are some of my favorite memories and/or things that happened in 2008:

*Europe... all of it. The whole two weeks. But for some sweet memories...
-Having breakfast in a cafe in Paris
-Eating our Parisian lunch (of fresh bread, fresh cheese, clementines and bottled water!) on a bench behind Notre Dame
-Eying the Eifle Tower for the first time
-Walking around St. Andrews and climbing on the huge rocks with Patrick
-The food at the hotel restaurant down the road from our B&B in Edinburgh
-Tea time in York
-Seeing Wicked in London

*Running my first 10k and getting first place!
-Getting to know Al better as we trained for the 10k.

*Finding out we were pregnant

*Although it was hard and emotional and took a long time to work through, the whole fertility treatment process (I mean, it was 5 months of the year long). We learned a lot and grew together a lot and cried a lot. I'm thankful for that trial.

*Fixing up the kitchen

*Going to Gettysburg, twice!

*Visiting Cayla and David in Chicago

*Our anniversary trip to Niagara Falls.

I think that should do it. :) This year was too quick and I have to look back through old posts and emails to remember what we did! We are looking forward to whatever 2009 holds for us. The Lord is certainly in control and we are excited to follow Him through the ups and downs that a whole 12 months is bound to hold.

Also, here are some pictures of me 30 weeks (and a few days) pregnant:

Frontal view
Side view
Side belly view
Frontal belly view (when I pulled up my shirt for the picture, Patrick said "Whoa. You look pregnant.) :)