What an unbelievable year!

Whatever your personal feelings about whether the year 2000 is really the beginning of the new millennium or not, we will always see it as the beginning of a new era for each of us. Without trying to be too melodramatic, we feel that our lives have finally reached a point where the real living can finally begin…

It could be said that the events that occurred this year began in January, but we prefer to see it as having begun years before that… nineteen years to be more exact.

Nineteen years is a long time. Long enough to see ones share of heartache; long enough to have a taste of the many good things this life has to offer. Plenty of time to wonder, "what if?"

Questions like those are only there to haunt a person, maybe even tempt them. Eventually, they realize that these questions are pointless; they can’t change the past. It’s best to just move on. But, it’s not easy to let go of the "happily ever after" dreams that their young hearts and minds are filled with as children. Romance movies capitalize on their naïve belief that fate will eventually draw them (usually through some bizarre circumstance) to their soulmate - the heart that they were destined to find.

But, life isn’t a manufactured Hollywood movie. Happiness is found in wanting what a person has, not what they don’t. If they wait for a comical blunder to land the love of their life in their lap, they’ll be waiting a long, long time.

Over the years, we have both had to come to terms with this idea. Life has dealt some pretty lousy cards in the past, but it has also provided some wonderful blessings as well. And so, deep down, the hope that our hearts would one day find a place of peace and contentment always remained alive.

It was the spring of 1981 that Annette and I first had the chance to get to know each other. Annette took stats for the track team during my junior and senior years. Things being what they were, there wasn’t the opportunity to establish anything "serious", but we were always comfortable talking to each other with the hint of something more just below the surface.

However, after graduation, sixteen years would pass before we would see each other again. And when that moment came, a moment frozen in time like a photograph captured in our minds, we recognized each other instantly, as if the years that separated us never existed.

It wasn’t love at first sight exactly, but there was a knowing that occurred, like an invisible spark that jumped between us to let us know that this was no chance meeting, that something wonderful was about to happen, was beginning to happen right then, right there.

In the months to follow, we would quickly discover that our unspoken hopes and desires were becoming reality before our very eyes. In what seemed like no time at all, we were standing hand-in-hand before our Father in Heaven, our friends and our family. On that day, we became Mr. and Mrs., but more than that, we became a new family.

So many blessings in such a short span of time. True love ("you think this happens every day?"), two more children to take joy in, a beautiful new home, (Dean’s promotion :-), and a future filled with promise. As we sit here today, our heads still spin with the sheer magnitude of it all. Regardless of what lies ahead, the year 2000 will always represent a turning point in our lives (and it will make counting anniversaries really easy ;-).

Here’s a quick run-down of the last year for us:

• 23 Jan. - Annette and Dean meet for the first time since high school at the First Baptist Church of Maryville
• 16 Feb. – Annette and Dean have their first date (17 yrs to the day that Annette signed Dean’s yearbook as it turns out)
• 31 May – Dean "officially" proposes to Annette (she said yes, by the way :-)
• 12 Jun. – We purchase our new home at 1603 Stonebrooke
• 8 Jul. – We are married and spend an incredible week in Hawaii

Also this year:

• Gillian is potty trained!
• Joel starts first grade at his new school.
• Joel played T-ball; his first team sport!
• Raeghan enters sixth grade; her first year at the middle school.
• Raeghan is forced to quit her gymnastics team (after 3+ years) due to an elbow injury, but joins the school cross country team and is placed on the varsity squad!
• Drew enters eighth grade; his last year in the middle school.
• Drew attains his brown belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and plays on the eighth grade football team!
• Annette and Dean snow-ski for the first time ever in Taos, NM!

What an awesome year!

Thank you Lord for Your many blessings!