2012
I love New Year's Eve. It is my favorite time of the year because I love endings and new beginnings. A new year is full of hope, 365 days to come that are not known to us.
I think 2012 has been our most eventful year ever. We started this year with a desire to move to Florida. We spent quite a bit of time painting and fixing up our Canonsburg house before we put it on the market in April.
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| The kids cleaned the brush off the hillside behind the house. |
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| The kitchen before the remodel |
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| The kitchen after the remodel |
Our house was on the market for four days before we signed a contract with the first people who looked at it. We saw this as a confirmation from God that we were definitely following God's direction.
While we waited to move, we finished out our school year at our co-op in Washington, PA. I taught on the Civil War to the 6th through 8th grade class, so in April our family went to Gettysburg, PA. The kids had never been there before, and I wanted them to experience it before we moved. We bought an audio tour of the battlefield and followed it along to all of the sites. I was very pleased to learn that my kids enjoyed Gettysburg and learning about the history.
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| Peace Light Memorial |
We went to Destination Unknown with the junior high youth group from our church in McMurray, PA - The Bible Chapel.
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| Performing in a skit in which I rubbed peanut butter in another leader's hair. Sorry it is blurry. |
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| Students playing games on the court. |
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| Finding M&Ms in whipped cream in the rain with only their mouths. |
Jacob turned 14 in January. Nate turned 12 in March, and Paige turned 11 in November. Paige performed in her dance recital on June 1st, and she found a new dance school in Jacksonville. She, however, is sure she will never find a dance instructor quite like Miss Bethany.
Jake found a Lego Robotics League when we moved. His team came in 2nd or 3rd in his first competition and gets to move on to Regionals in February.
Nate took part in a Lego Movie-Making camp this summer and took a video production class at co-op. He is as much into his Legos as he ever was and received three sets for Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, my brother and his family and my parents came to our new house for Christmas week. It seemed very strange to not have any snow or cold weather for Christmas Day. My mom is having a hard time remembering it is New Year's Eve today because the weather is so nice. :-)
On Halloween, we moved into a house we had built. Before that, we spent five months in a rental just down the road.
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| Our house in the final stages before closing. |
Since being here, we have found a new co-op. We are working on making new friends. I know it'll take some time to make the kind of friends like we had in PA, but we're off to a good start. We have found a wonderful church and joined a small group.
We have gone on field trips to local forts, an alligator farm, Disney, St. Augustine Old Jail, many different beaches, camping in the panhandle of Florida with friends, among other things.
We got a puppy 3-1/2 weeks ago. She is a chocolate lab mix named Cocoa. She is precious, and we are thankful to our friends, the Konrads, for giving her to us.
So, as eventful as 2012 was and how evident it was to us that God was at work in everything we did, I look forward to 2013. It'll be a year with new goals and new adventures, and God will still be at work in our lives doing immeasurably more for us than we could ever imagine or deserve.
May you have a blessed new year as well!!!
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