New Year, New Adventures

Last night to celebrate the New Year, my wonderful husband and I went out to dinner (thanks to Grammie Susan for watching K!). Believe it or not, this was only the 2nd time that we have been out to dinner alone, just the two of us, since K was born! Maybe we should resolve to go on more dates in 2009!!

Anyway, we were talking about all of the things that happened in 2008 that were completely unexpected. We would have never guessed on Dec. 31, 2007 that 2008 would be a year of so much change - that it would hold all of the things that it did for us. I just wanted to recap a little to remember and learn from the past year.

On January 2, 2008, Jer was laid-off from his job. He had been working there for almost 4 years, and although layoffs are common in the car industry, this was extremely unexpected to us. Jer ended up being unemployed for 3 months until he started at his current job on April 1st selling commercial real estate. Although he was really excited about the job, it was a large pay cut for us. Then, when I learned that I would be done working at Young Life at the end of July, we decided that realistically we could no longer afford to stay in our home, so we put it up for sale at the beginning of June, trusting that it would sell quickly, even in the midst of a slow market. Well, here it is the beginning of 2009 and we have yet to sell our house. In September, Jer turned 30, I turned 28 and we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. In October, we learned that we were expecting baby #2, and Kaelyn turned 1. Wow - what a year!!

Some of the major changes of this year for us have been:
-We have learned about the joys and struggles of being new parents.
-Jer's new job has blessed us with him working fewer hours; being able to be home in the evening and on the weekends and having time off around the holidays. Oh how we have enjoyed all of the family time that we were missing out on before!!
-I no longer work for Young Life and have been home full time with K since August. Balancing mommying and working was a tough thing, but I often miss the outlet that having something outside of the house brings. And I definitely miss my co-workers, the other leaders, and the kids that I worked with.
-We decided to sell our house and move to a different part of town, although it obviously hasn't happened yet.
-We learned that our family of 3 is becoming a family of 4, we are growing quickly!
-We have dealt with some tough financial issues as we struggle with the loss of my income and Jer's income being cut in half.
-We have trusted (and are continuing to learn to trust) in God, even when we don't know what the next day or week or month will bring. Jer being out of work for 3 months was so hard on us, but we trusted that God had a better plan and that He knows and wants what is best for us. We are still trusting that plan, as we wait for our house to sell, decide where to move, and prepare to add to our family. We are praying and trusting that God will work out His plan for us.

I think one of the main things I learned during the past year is that I really have no idea what the future will hold. There is no way we could have predicted any of this happening. But, God knows. He holds our futures in His hands and we can trust in that. I am so excited to see what He has for us in 2009, I'm sure it will be full of new adventures and things so unexpected I can't even picture them right now. Most of all, I want to remember, and continue to learn, to trust God through it all.