Looking back over this past year….
This year was the year I blogged the least, out of the almost 6 years I’ve been blogging. I’m not exactly sure why; a lot of factors probably played into it, I guess, but, overall, I hit the main highlights of the year, so I guess that’s worth commending.
January:
I only blogged 4 times in January and 2 of those posts were an overview of Christmas (2013) and Year in Review (2013)–so, the only blog post that was worthy was THIS ONE (which is pretty good, in my opinion)!
Oh, and we had our “snow day” for the year!
February:
The highlight of this month was going to Illinois to visit (little did we know, 10 months later, we’d be back permanently)!! 😉 You can see a recap of my trip here and here
Also, I wrote another “deep thought” blog post here….
March:
I was consumed 24/7 this month with my LONG-TERM sub. job as the PE Teacher! It was crazy; read about it here!!
April:
Well, I only blogged twice in April, and they were both about trips we took. So, I guess April was the month to travel. We went to Houston for our anniversary (about a month early) and went to Fredericksburg/New Braunfels for Easter.
May:
May was another month for me to travel. This time to Hawaii!
June:
Being in Youth Ministry means that your summer is filled with camp, VBS, and mission trips.
In June I went to Pre-Teen Camp with RLBC and then Paul and I took our Youth (from FBC Giddings) to Youth Camp (here and here)–(with a week of VBS thrown in there as well).
July:
We went on another Mission Trip in July (here, here, here, and here). I also went to Waco for a week, and then Paul surprised me and took me to New Braunfels for a trip to Schlitterbahn….
This was also the month the church flooded and I posted about “achieving enoughness.”
August:
Another month of traveling: This time to Illinois!!! 🙂 (Little did we know that this would be the trip that would change our lives and we would end up BACK here in 3 short months)!
I also wrote about “Simplicity” and the idea of Entertaining our Children….
September:
This month was, by far, the one of the hardest months of the year for me. (You can read about it here).
When we left Illinois in August Paul had accepted the job (of Program Director at Great Oaks), but we couldn’t tell anybody….yet. So, we went almost 6 weeks without telling anyone about us moving–it was killer! It was so hard. We knew we couldn’t move until the beginning of November, so the original plan was for Paul to work until the middle of October. But, as the days went on, he knew he didn’t want to go that long. His heart was already in Illinois, planning and thinking about Inner-City Ministry, so the end of September seemed like the better choice. And, even then it was SO HARD!!! We finally announced it to the church on September 28th. (That blog post is here).
September was the start of football season, along with spending our last days trying to see as many people as we could, knowing we were going to have to say good-bye in 2 months. I traveled to Waco to see my parents and visit with some friends. (This would be my last trip to Waco before the move).
October:
This was our month of good-byes.
We said good-bye to the church here and here.
We said good-bye to my parents here.
We said good-bye to Paul’s parents here (along with some of our church youth).
And here are more “reflections” on our move.
We also started our move to Illinois!!! 🙂
November:
Well, the BIG DAY we had been waiting for! We moved!!
We adjusted to life in Illinois quite nicely (and quickly)–it really does help when you move right back into the same house you lived in before, go to the same church as you did before, and have the same friends you did before!
It has only snowed (and really it wasn’t snow as it was just a DUSTING) twice since we’ve been back (here and here) since we’ve lived here and that was about 2 weeks after we moved here. I am very disappointed in the weather so far, but I guess it’s a nice change for them because, apparently, last year was brutal around here!!!
In November we also traveled to Chicago to see Paul’s friend, Jonathan, who was visiting (from Pennsylvania). That was really fun (but, again, it solidified the fact that we do not like Chicago)!! Too much traffic and too many people!
December:
Because we just moved here we knew we were not going to travel for Christmas. It was a pretty quiet Christmas until my sister called and said they were coming to visit 2 days after Christmas! So, we ended up having company for 4 days. They were super disappointed (and probably very bored) because we didn’t have any snow! (Sorry)!!
So, overall, as I look back on 2013 I realize that I traveled quite a bit. Which is strange to me because I don’t really feel like I did–I guess it just happened, and I didn’t realize how much it was until I started doing this Year in Review. I traveled somewhere almost every month and went out of state 5 months this year! (This coming year it will be significantly less, I’m afraid, because we don’t have the money to do much traveling, I’m afraid)!
Looking onward:
I feel like we are where we are supposed to be. I’ve said this before, but I am so blessed to be back in Illinois because Paul has friends again. My heart smiles every time he calls me and tells me he’s going to lunch with Jim and Graham. My heart smiles when I am able to hear about all the theological discussions they have while cleaning camp buildings. It makes THIS all worth it!!
I really am not into making New Year’s resolutions, so I don’t really have anything significant that I am looking forward to. But, my prayer is that Paul’s summer is the best summer yet (in reference to Inner-City ministry here at Great Oaks Camp). Please join me in praying for him as he recruits counselors and as he plans Counselor Training.
Here’s to a New Year!!
Finding Refuge 