Goodbye 2008...

Hello 2009! I am a bit behind in blog land. Umm... Yeah I think I left off somewhere in November! What alot of catching up to do:).

Ran my first half-marathon in December... finishing it was an awesome moment in my life!!! Especially considering I couldn't run around the block six months ago without needing an oxygen mask!

It was a fabulous day for a run...like 70 degrees in December! However, I neglected to remember that Dallas is exceptionally humid at all times of the year. So what did I wear for this momentous day??... a track suit. Yes, that's right, pants... cotton lined pants in humid 70 degree weather. What was I thinking??? As I stepped out of the hotel that morning I asked myself that very question, but it was to late to do anything about it. I was commited. So off we went towards American Airline center which was 2 miles from the hotel. And 25 minutes later we were still 1/2 a mile from AA center. They had closed off almost all the roads to the starting line. Yikes! So I start to see people jumping out of cars and just walking. This seemed like a good idea, so I joined up with a group. By the time I got to my part of the line up it was 10 minutes till the start. Great! I didn't miss it! Shoot though! I really had to go to the bathroom at this point. No big deal just run into the AA center real quick. There are a thousand bathrooms in there right??? Wrong!Guess what, 15,000 other people decided they had to go to the bathroom before the race too. Well I didn't have to go that bad I rationalized. Surely there will be a bathroom at each mile....Haha! No bathroom until mile 3!!! And when I got there I was like 7th in line! Oh and did I mention it was a dreaded port-o-potty? Yeah... so here was germaphobic me in my sweaty sticky cottonlined track pants in this tiny box trying not to touch anything! It was a MOMENT to say the least!

After that little milestone, it was pretty much trauma free the rest of the way:)! Hubs and the girls met me at mile 6 & 8. They were so cute waving their little pom-poms (courtesy of my sweet running hero Ms.Paige) and signs! Somewhere around mile 11 it dawned on me... I really think I can do this (big smile)! What a relief! Such a cool moment coming down the last hill seeing all those people encouraging you to finish strong! Such a beautiful visual of what heaven is like with the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on! Hubs, the girls, Tom and Chandra were all at the finish line too! It was such a great day!

After the race we went on into E.T. to celebrate Christmas early with our extended faimily. So we were actually home at our house for the first time ever on Christmas morning! It was fantastic! We are seriously thinking that we may do that every year from now on! We stayed in our jammies all day, played Monopoly until E beat us ;) and ate yummy holiday food! Delightful!!!

Yes 2008 was quite a year! A year of changing and growing! Didn't look anything like what I thought it would, but turned out to be so much better. Isn't that just like Jesus:)! Looking forward to enjoying the journey in 2009!