Happy New Year!

Wow- it seems that 2006 flew by without me realizing it! What a year it was too! The year started out with a bang, though last New Year’s Eve (of 2005), I was asleep by 10 pm! The first part of the year was filled with work and new projects that kept me quite busy.

At Easter, I flew up to visit my family and friends in Chicago. It was the first time back for me since October 2005. I learned that a weekend was too little time, too many people to see.

The next big thing was my trip to Cuba, which happened at the end of May. It was an amazing time with the believers there. I think they encouraged us more than we encouraged them!

In June, I flew back up to Chicago and surprised my parents who had been out of the country for 6 months. It was one of the sweetest times with my family that I have had.

July, I started to attend my now home church, The Heights. At the end of the month, I took my annual fishing trip with my parents to Bass Lake in Minnesota (and yes, I bait my own hook and release my fish!).

September is when life really picked up. I went to Arizona for the first time. My parents went back overseas. On the homefront, friendships with some of the girls in the YP class started to develop. Jos and I started dating, and I got more involved at church. It seemed like every night I was doing something!

November brought another trip to Chicago to see my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephews (and a few of my friends). Jos was introduced to my family, Chicago, and friends (in that order). It was another good trip, we had a lot of fun.

This past month has been a whopper. My parents returned back to the US, they came down to visit me the weekend before Christmas. Christmas, I went with Jos to Louisiana to meet his family, which was a lot of fun. I enjoyed watching Jos as he described all of his haunts in Minden. I had the week of Christmas off, which was nice ‘cause I was sick the entire week.

New Year’s Eve it got even better, Jos and I celebrated his birthday. He even gave me a present- a ring. Yep, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Wow- what a year!

This year will be another life changing year, as has the past 2 years have been. So stayed tuned!

Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer