Belly's 1st visit with Santa, 12/24/07We would like to extend best wishes to all of our family and friends, both near and far, to have a wonderful, safe, and happy holiday! It's Christmas time again and we are reminded how thankful we are to have such good people in our lives.
2007 has been a good year to us. Greg had a major promotion at work and with continued training and hard work, is on his way to becoming a general manager for Chipotle in the next year or so. Annie is finally finished with all of her training at the dispatch center and recently became a coach herself. We have been blessed to have such success at work, and thanks to the promotions, have even been fortunate to have had some sizable raises this year.
We are also thankful for good health for both our little family, but also for our immediate family. Isabella, who turned 4 years old in May, is growing like a weed and is very healthy, happy, and smart. She started reading this year and is able to write some 3 letter words now. Kindergarten is not far off (she starts next September). She is full of energy and brings more joy to us than we could have ever imagined.
Of course, with all the good, a few sad things highlighted the year. We lost Greg's grandmother, Donna, to a long term illness. We did have a chance to spend some time with her before she was no longer communicating, and we are glad to have those final memories. We also lost Gary's father, Bill, to a long term illness. He was a great guy who loved to spend time chatting with Belly when they were up in Portland visiting.
We also received word that Chris, Greg's brother, was being called up for active duty to serve overseas. He is currently in training and is set to deploy to Iraq sometime in March 2008. The call up for service was a surprise to both Chris and the rest of the family. We are all praying for a safe deployment and a speedy return back home to the U.S.
Other highlights of the year included Belly's 1st trip to Disneyland (she LOVED it!), a trip to Dodger Stadium for Greg's birthday, and a couple trips up to Seattle.
With 2008 right around the corner, we are wishing for continued good health, success, and happiness. We are committed to becoming debt free this year and sticking with the baby steps outlined by Dave Ramsey. Thus far, those steps have helped us save an emergency fund, create and maintain a dollar for dollar budget each month, and pay down a large chunk of debt. We are proud of our accomplishments and hope to have earned some serious bragging rights by the end of next year.
We are planning to do some traveling in 2008 as well. Plans are already in the works to visit New York for a chance to see Yankee Stadium before it's too gone, a trip to Hawaii if time permits, baseball excursions in Seattle, and the usual jaunts to CA to visit family and friends. We hope 2008 brings some visitors to our neck of the world too (Portland is very beautiful we hear *wink,wink*)!
We ask for God's blessing for you and your family for good health, happiness, success, and safety. Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Hanukah, Merry Kwanzaa, Merry (enter holiday here)! Have a SAFE and HAPPY New Year!
Love,
Greg, Annie, and Belly
P.S. Please visit the blog as often as you like. We love visitors and visitor comments (you don't have to share an email address or join a blogging community to send comments) and we try and post updates and random stuff at least twice a month.
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