As I look forward to ringing in the New Year at Timber Creek on our BreakThru retreat with Taylor and my 8th grade boys D-Group, I always like to review the memorable moments from the past year. Each month brought back great memories from a busy, fun-filled 2018 for our family:
Jan – Dutch’s 50thbirthday celebration in Las Vegas, Fri 1/5 – Mon 1/8. Went to 4 shows: Matt Franco, Blue Man Group, Criss Angel, O at Bellagio; rode zipline at Rio and Big Apple coaster at NY casino.
Feb – Orlando for Cheer Nationals for Taylor’s JV AHS team. We stayed at Caribbean Beach resort again (Thu 2/8 – Tue 2/13; Dutch returned Sun). Friday at Magic Kingdom; competitions on Sat (3rdplace in Nationals), but they won Worlds on Sun. 2/16/18 - Nicole’s 13thb-day dinner at Firebirds with Courtney. 2/24-25 - Weekend trip to Baton Rouge; met my parents at Katherine’s and visited with all the cousins. Went to TX-LSU baseball game with my dad at Alex Box stadium.
Mar – The girls took a quick Spring Break trip to Little Rock (Sun 3/11 – Tue 3/13), and we had a family day on Thu downtown (Big River Crossing, Jerry’s sno cones; Grizz game)
Apr – Nicole’s 13thbirthday trip to LA 4/5-8 on Cindy’s bday! Nicole met many of her YouTubers at the Rock Your Hair concert in Anaheim; Full day at Universal Studios and touring Hollywood.
May – Celebrated Taylor’s 15thbday with 2 concerts: to Beale St Music Fest to see Post Malone on her birthday, and later in the month to see Justin Timberlake at the FedExForum with her friend Rachel.
June – Funeral for Cindy’s mom on 6/21; Taylor went to Camp Bear Track for 2 weeks on 6/24; bought new Yukon on 6/28; beach trip Perdido 6/30 – 7/5; and back to AR on 7/6 to pick up Taylor.
July – Summer baseball trip to Denver/Houston 7/24-29 for 5 Astros games and traveled to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs.
Aug/Sep – wrapped up a busy summer with a new AC unit installed, and Gommy & GP came for a visit the wknd after Labor Day.
Oct – Celebrated our 21stanniversary dinner at Stoney River. For Fall break, Taylor went to beach (though cut short due to hurricane in Panama City). Later in the month, Cindy went to San Diego for a CA girls trip, and we went to Nashville for Tyler-Lauren’s wedding.
Nov – Taylor’s state cheer tournament in Murfreesboro, and we stayed an extra night for Rik Emmett’s last tour at City Winery in downtown Nashville.
Dec – on 12/21 we drove to Dallas to spend Christmas early with my parents and Vicki, Paul, Emily and David. Drove home on Christmas Eve for dinner at the Wingett’s, and Christmas lunch with her family at our house. Dutch and Taylor to Break-Thru at Timber Creek 12/30 – 1/02.
Some memorable movies from 2018:
I Can Only Imagine, Ocean's 8, Mission: Impossible - Fallout; Indivisible (and not so memorable: 8th grade)
Books I enjoyed reading:
Astroball by Ben Reiter; Republicans Buy Sneakers Too by Clay Travis; Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game by Rob Neyer (just started in Dec and sure to make next year's list!)
Concerts I enjoyed seeing:
Brandon Heath/Big Daddy Weave at Faith Baptist Church; Foo Fighters at FedEx Forum; Eric Johnson at The New Daisy; the aforementioned Rik Emmett concert at City Winery which marked the 11th time we've seen Rik in concert over the past 20 years.
So, in looking ahead to 2019, I'm looking forward to beginning all of my days in God's Word as I embark on reading the One Year Chronological Bible. In 2010, I read thru this Bible in a year for the first time in my life and I remember it being a transformative time for me as I was going thru my first career transition and God spoke to me clearly and continually during this year of change which also lead me to beginning DownLine in the August of this year, and to my next job (at FOX13) in the Spring of 2011. As I read thru in 2019 a resource I'll be using is the daily devotionals and weekly podcasts from Chronological Bible Teaching. I've always enjoyed hearing Iva May teach the story arc of the Bible thru the 14 eras of God's big story, so I'm looking forward to receiving CBT's resources in my email each day to help keep me on track and attain greater understanding of God's Word.
In closing, just this morning I read a verse which I'm adopting as my theme verse for 2019:
"I rise before before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word." ~ Psalm 119:147 NIV
