Catching up...

I thought I better go ahead and catch up from Christmas and all the festivities before tomorrow! What? It's already the beginning of another year!! Crazy. Time flies.
Anyways, Christmas was wonderful, crazy and busy all at the same time. We had a couple parties at our house, celebrated my birthday ( on the 20th) with an awesome surprise from Pete to a bed and breakfast and a fun weekend together (also included some shopping!) experienced the drama of Hope breaking her ankle, being in a cast for 7 days making it difficult to put pants over the cast and having major wardrobe drama to finding out a week later from the orthopedic Dr. that is was not broken after all!! They took the cast off and she cried for 15 minutes because she was sad to see all those sweet names of her friends leave her leg (oh yeah, AND the attention it brought her!) It took her a couple of days to be able to put full pressure on that ankle, but we are so happy to have found out it was fine... then we had school parties, shopped for gifts, wrapped gifts, exchanged gifts, Christmas Eve services (which were my favorite yet) get togethers with both sides of the family and extended family, spent lots of time finding out about our new little "guy" that we got the girls for Christmas, celebrated Christmas, went to the movies...................THEN on the 26th, we celebrated Pete's Birthday!
Usually, we pack it up the day after Christmas and go to Gatlinburg, TN for the Xtreme Conferences that Pete is the host/emcee of every year, but this year the girls and I stayed back for a few days and did a whole lot of NOTHING. I had to recoup and start getting Buster trained! He has done so good and we even brought him on his first road trip.
Now, we are in Gatlinburg ready to ring in 09 tonight with 6,000 of our closest friends! I was wondering what it is like to be anywhere else besides here on Dec. 31st! We have a great time up here. This is where we have been every year since 96.
Last night our adventure included Fanny Farkles (restaurant/arcade) at midnight only to be followed by a funnel cake! Nasty. I know:)
I can't believe Christmas is over AND that 08 has come to an end. It's been a wonderful year and I'm so thankful for all the Lord has blessed us with and done in our lives...... looking forward to 2009!! Happy New Year! Now it's time to party!!