A New Year...

2008 is already over and it has brought some joys and sorrows.

Joys -

Although 2008 was a tough year for a lot of us we did see some joy in our lives this year.

First of all, after numerous attempts to get promoted in my Air Force career, I finally was promoted to Master Sgt. God is good...and of course with the new rank comes more responsibility..overtime.

My good friend Gustavo got married. He met his wife Polly on e-harmony (which I find funny). I guess those internet dating services actually work.

Other friends of ours, Jason and Christina, gave birth to a cute boy, Oliver. Oliver was also blessed by his Grandfather Ross while still in mama's womb.


My youngest and most beautiful child (sorry boy) turned 18. She's a senior this year and I am so proud of her. She has been diligent with her school work (debate) and her acting (takes after her mom). She had a lead role in the play Aladdin for her school and she did an awesome job!


My favorite son finished his Associate in Applied Science degree in Biology and next week is headed to Blackburn College in Illinois. I will be driving him there and for those of you who read this please pray for us that his car makes it in one piece (it has over 200K miles on it). Of course Lauren is having mixed emotions about soon becoming an empty nester. Time for mom to let go and let these young adults make their contributions to God and their lives. We are excited to see them get married in the next 10 years and us become grandparents.



Lauren still enjoys every minute with me (of course she does) and still enjoys driving her mustang.

We also got to spend time with the twins up at Aspen and we had a blast. Of course they were really glad to spend time with their favorite uncle. :)

Lauren and I also got to spend time with our good friend Paul before he passed away.

Which leads to the sorrows...

2008 brought sad goodbyes. I had to say goodbye to two good friends of mine - Ross and Paul.

Both of them were my brothers...we had great relationships and good times.

Ross was and is a great encourager. I always liked comparing Ross to Barnabas (one of the original apostles) because no matter how bad you were feeling or what you were going through he would always come along side and not only help but cheer you up at the same time.

Paul was my mentor and close brother. When comparing Paul to the original apostles I always thought he was a mixture of two...Paul and John. Early on in our relationship he was more like the apostle Paul who was constantly teaching me how to walk with Christ, not only instructing me by his words but by how he lived his life. He truly was a man who not only knew the Word but he lived and modeled it. As I grew in my relationship with him and Christ, he became more like John. He had a soft heart and was the kindest most loving man I have ever known on this earth.




I miss both of my brothers and look forward to seeing them again someday.

I also lost my favorite Aunt right after Christmas. She was my mom's best friend and when we were young our families always visited. She treated all of us as her own. She married when she was in her 30s and was married for over 30 years. In high school, I lived with her for three years. She was a kind lady and although I can remember times when she got mad at me and would try and give me spanking...but in actuality it was more like a love tap. Now, there is only one left on my mother's side of the family - my uncle Johan. I will miss my aunt terribly and I thank God we had such a great relationship. She lost her husband (my uncle Andy) around 10 years ago. He was the love of her life and she was never the same after his passing.



And that's all I have in this blog posting.

May the Lord be with you and cause His face to shine upon you in this upcoming year.