2008 is here and it's been an almost perfect beginning

Happy New Year everyone! A friend wrote in her blog that she likes even numbers and that since this is 2008, she's hoping it'll be a good year. I agree. I never thought about odd vs even numbers much until I married Mark. He LOVES even numbers. He'll chance a phone number (I think he even requested a new license plate) if it's not even. So here's to hoping 2008 is better than 2007. Not that 2007 was a total disaster, but we had some hard times last year. It began on New Year's Eve (OK...technically 2006, but close enough) with our niece Bethany (who is now 10) making an emergency trip to Children's Hospital because she slammed up against a tree at the end of the family zip line. Two skull fractures and some scratches later, this incredible girl is so blessed to be alive!! A week after that, Mark's cousin Trent died in a house fire. Tragic! Mark continued to struggle with job stuff, too.

We did see joys in 2007 though: the return of Brett Favre to the Green Bay Packers (OK...you KNEW I had to start with that one), the high school graduation of my nephew, Andrew (and subsequent entry into the Air Force), the birth of Isaiah Spies, the adoption of Hope H by our friend Beth and Ron, and the list goes on and on. Oh...and we can't forget the incredible celebration my family and friends threw me for my 40th birthday in September. So it wasn't all bad.

2008 looks to bring: job stability for Mark. He's now employed once again with Thrivent at the home office. The bummer part is that for right now he's working at the office in Appleton. That shouldn't be for long though. They're saying by March (if not earlier) he'll be at the home office in Minneapolis...which is where he was for 17 years when he got let go in the Lutheran Brotherhood merger with AAL. So this is like going home for him. Already in his few days that he's been at this new position he seems happier. 2008 will also bring the birth of my friend's (Andrea and Bert) first child. Could be any day now. As of Dec. 31, 2007, I'm also starting my scrapbooking business. We have the domain name, so now it's time to get the website up and running. Once the website is up, I'll post a link on this blog. 2008 will also bring Hope to the start of her school career as she begins pre-school in the fall. Where has the time gone?? I hope she's both potty trained and able to be without Mommy for 2.5 hours by then. 2008 could also very possibly bring a trip to Germany for me with my siblings and their spouses. Andrew is being stationed at Ramstein (am I spelling that correctly??) Air Base at the end of March so we're all planning on going over to see him. Hopefully during Oktoberfest (which, by the way, would be around my birthday. I celebrated my 30th birthday in Germany/Austria, so why not my 41st??)

Now, I can't end this post without a little bit of football talk. The football games the past few days have gone almost exactly how I would have chosen them to turn out. I would have loved to seen the Patriots get beat, but they didn't. Oh well. I also would have loved to have seen the Badgers win the Outback Bowl today, but they didn't (thanks mostly in part to some REALLY lousy reffing). But things that went well: the Packers beat up the Lions, the Vikings are out of the play offs and the Cowboys got beat by the Redskins (which helped secure the Vikings' curtain call for this season). Now we wait to see who the Packers will have in the first round of the play offs. There are lots of scenarios for how I'd like to see the post season unfold for the Packers (of course that would culminate in a trip to the Super Bowl where we'd beat the crap out of the Patriots...hey, a girl has to dream), but that's for another post. I'm too tired.

Time for bed. I wish for all of you a safe, healthy and blessed 2008.
PS...Excuse bad grammar and spelling in this post...it's been a long weekend and I'm not editing tonight.