Goodbye 2009

Wow! I can't believe it is already time to move into a new year. I remember sitting on my friend Nicole's couch last year and she was helping me start this blog. I had several reasons I started to blog...one being I wanted to have a way to tell people about our trip to Yellowstone and Oh Boy am I ever glad I had the blog world then! It keep people up on our situation and provided so much help and prayer from back home! Another reason I started to blog was to allow our family and friends who don't live close stay up on what's going on with our family on a daily basis. Also...I wanted a way to get to know other pastor's wives and gain wisdom and friendship from them. And last...I wanted to share our lives and show people...we are real...we struggle...we laugh...we live...we fight...we don't always do the right thing, but we try and give them a glimpse of what it's like to live a life in church leadership and hopefully encourage them in their relationship with God.
Thank you for allowing me to share with you our lives for this year. I have meet some amazing people through the blog world. I am not really sure who all reads this...because I will be having conversations with people and think...they could only know that if they have read my blog...hmm...I know it's not an exciting life or anything..:) but it's my life and I love it. I pray each of you look forward to where God is leading you in 2010. I am looking forward to the changes he is making in me and my family. I will be sharing them with you over the next few days. A lot has changed in my life in 2009, some good...some not so good...but change is always hard for me.
Highlights & Happenings in my family:
*My parents celebrated 40 years of marriage
*Matt and I celebrated 16 years of marriage
**Jaden was baptized @ camp...one of the best days of the year!
*I got a Mac
*Jaden broke his wrist
*My uncle Gene died
*Our Yellowstone/Grand Teton/Mt. Rushmore trip...probably the highlight of our year!! Loved this trip and would do it all over again today...great friends and a great adventure for our family.
*Built a deck
*Matt got stitches from the "free deck"
*A great Football season
*Virtual roundtable with PWs
*Loss of our Sweet Lab Maggie
*Bible Study Fellowship
*Trip to Dallas...without kids!
*Meeting Francis Chan
*My sis n law released her Bible Study!
*Matt's grandpa McCroskey died
*Lori diagnosed with cancer
*Small group formed
*Announcement of Stone Canyon campus
*watching lives changed for the Kingdom
*Marriages saved
There are so many other things...but these are some that just stand out to me. I am blessed to have been a part of all of this! Bring it on 2010!
This is my theme verse for the year....
Colossians 1:10-14
And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 
Happy New Year to you and many blessings to come!
Steph