New Year, New Goals, New Challenges!

The holidays are over. They always go by too quickly for my liking, but it makes me appreciate that time of year even more. John finished up the semester strongly and is very excited to be done with his art history class. Too bad he still has one more to go. We had the opportunity to fly to Florida for the Christmas break and visit with family and friends. Samantha was an angel on all four flights. She kept everyone around us amused with her grins and her waves. It was so nice to spend time with family and just relax some. Samantha learned a lot on our trip-how to do "SO big!" say "uh oh" and give noggin (bump heads with another person). She is still very adventuresome and happy. She will be a year old in less than a month!

Christmas was wonderful. It is always a wonderful time and I am grateful for the day that Christ was born. Someone at my church explained that perhaps the reason we all make New Years Resolutions is because of the Spirit that we feel through the holidays. We reflect on our many blessings at and are a little more Christ-like through this time. These feelings and acts of goodwill and service fill us with the desire to continually do better and improve. Hence our New Years Resolutions. At least I like to think about it that way.

School has started in full swing and both John and I are loving our classes. John is taking a few GEs and some cinematography courses. He is so unbelievingly talented. I am looking forward to seeing his work through the semester. I am taking 5 courses including a British Literary History course (which is amazing thus far) and a Astronomy course (which I love as well). Samantha is doing really well with the schedule change and loving the time she gets to spend with her Daddy.

A few new developments: Starting this month I will be an author on a parenting blog called Notes on Parenting. It is a really great resource for parents that talks about many topics. Also, I will be starting a Photo365 project here in the next few days and will be posting the photos here. John will soon be finding out whether or not he will receive the ORCA Grant to work on his amazing animated project, Bert. Samantha starts a tots swim class next Saturday as well. We are definitely staying busy!