I'm Still Here

It has been a VERY long time since I have posted on my blog, every day that passes it makes me feel like I should just give up on my blog, but then in the back of my mind I keep thinking, "no, don't be a quitter."

Life has been incredibly busy these past few months.  The busyness has been making wonderful memories mostly so for this I am immensely thankful.

In November we had our first visitor, my sister.  We crammed much into the time she was here and it was a wonderful time together.  We also had a good time with friends celebrating Thanksgiving.  We have so much to be thankful for. 

Then in December, wow, we had our second visitors (my parents), visited a few Christmas Markets, celebrated Jesus' birth, Gregory memorized his first portion of scripture for our church's Christmas Eve service, celebrated Joshua's 4th birthday with lots of friends (and Grandma Judy got to make another birthday cake).

In January, we calmed things down a bit...Joshua started pre-school since he was fully potty-trained!  This was a huge accomplishment and we are very proud of him.  We also got news that we could apply for early retirement from the Air Force.

In February, we completed and submitted our application to Cadence to be missionaries to the overseas military youth.  We also (as a family) went to the Germany Cadence Middle School Retreat called Escape.  Tom was a small group leader (and Nick's right hand man), Roxanne helped Nick with Admin duties, while Joshua and Gregory ran around and had fun with the students and other kids of Cadence workers.  This was all with about 110 students from Stuttgart and about 140 more from other bases around Germany.  It was a great time for the students to grow closer to God, have fun and build relationships.  For us it was a great time to do ministry as a family and see how it can still be done with all of us together - as this was the first time we participated as a family where both Tom and I had significant roles and we had both of our boys with us.

We are nearing the end of February and we know that the pace of our lives is going to pick up again soon, as we are anxiously awaiting news from the Air Force and praying for the acceptance of our request for early retirement.     

2013 Annual Letter & Christmas Card