Holiday Photos...

Christmas Eve at Papa's



Christmas night at Dad's

New Year's Eve at the Hightowers

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2006! I give my apologies for the delay in updating the blog, getting back into the saddle (Charlotte, I got a cliché right!) has taken awhile.

Our Christmas was great and honestly it was the busiest and most unexpected Christmas I have ever experienced! All my day dreams of our first Christmas being that of a relaxed timely manner, with hour upon hour to open each gift and extra time to give a big thank you, watching football in pj’s and of course have a nice breakfast casserole on our new wedding chine on the perfect candle lit table set for two. Well, let me give you a sweet and blissful reality … We would dash from one place to the next, watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers most exciting game of the season from our peripheral vision as we hurry to get ready, be a few minutes late for Christmas Eve dinner – because for goodness sake the Buc’s are in overtime, quickly clean our plates to make it for choir rehearsal for the Christmas Eve services, wake up to an alarm so we can open gifts before heading out, squeeze in some frozen cinnamon buns on paper plates for Christmas breakfast, Christmas services, lunch at moms, dinner at dads, and all the while finding moments here and there to say to each other, “Merry Christmas, I love you.” Phew!!!!!

Art got the long awaited mp3 player, or iPOD, for Christmas from me (or Santa – even though our apartment is so small Santa couldn’t have come in without either breaking a leg or knocking something over which probably would have been our all consuming Christmas tree). With the few Christmas morning hours we had at home before the schedules and gatherings began – Art managed to load over half of the mp3 player’s memory! So funny!

By the time Christmas night came, we realized how exhausted and out of gas we were and collapsed! We had much needed down time between Christmas and New Years to just hang out with friends and at home. So great!

We spent New Years Eve with our close friends and had a blast! We left talking about how awesome it is to have such fun and inspiring friends. Love you all!

New Years resolutions? Art says, “If you ain’t doin’ it now, you ain’t gonna be doin’ it later.” I begged to differ and confirmed over and over that I believe in and love fresh starts and new beginnings. They’re like a breath of fresh air for me. I love to take inventory and pray for God to widen my horizons more in 2006 than I knew in 2005. God has done so much in and around Art and I that sometimes it’s hard to imagine He would take us further still. In our marriage, for instance, we love each other so much more than we did on our wedding day – the first year is such a building time (building a home and tradition, building on our commitment, building more and more into the team we are made to be, and so on) – yet God promises to take us onward.

Onward … that word makes me think of a journey, a path, an upward climb. Life throws all of us turns and hurdles, and simultaneously our loving God offers us controlled steering and strength to jump, as we look to Him. Onward into year 2006, we stride –all waving back to the good, the bad – 2005 good-bye.