Out with the old ...

Some favorite moments from 2008. There are so many to choose from ...

Ella J joined our family in January 2008, so she's just one week shy of her first birthday. This photo of her sleeping is from when she was only weeks old.

Dylan is half-way through is first year of real, stay-all-day school. This picture of him sitting on a fence is from our annual camping trip with friends from church. We took a short hike - the first time he's had to do all the walking and none of the riding. Ella J got to ride in the backpack this year!

Our Christmas visit with the Barnet kids. I was their nanny/chauffer/grocery-getter/etc. from 2001 until April of 2008, so it mostly feels like they're family, too. Becca is almost 22, a senior at the Rhode Island School of Art & Design (RISD), Will is 19 and a freshman at Brown, and John is almost 17 and a junior in high school. With them are Ella J & Dylan.

Mike with his Clemson flag at Lake Tahoe this summer. He was so lucky to be able to do some traveling & sight-seeing while he was participating in the Maynard Institute's Journalism Fellowship in Reno, NV over the summer. I love that he had to pick and choose what to pack and the Clemson flag was never once in danger of being removed from the list of "must-haves"!

It's been a great year for our family - not without it's struggles or moments we wish we could take back - but mostly a good year. We'll kick-off 2009 with Ella J's 1st birthday ... and see what's in store for the rest of the year!

Happy New Year!

Halloween, a new President-Elect, and Pony Rides

This life of mine is going at twice the speed of light. Is that even possible? I stink at physics (and all other sciences, truth be told). Be it possible or not, it's true.
Two months ago, I was a high school student. I was carrying a pillow to first block to sleep through Chemistry (a hint at why I stink at sciences?) and only concerned with Volleyball or the next trip I'd take with my youth group.
A month ago I was a college student, standing outside my Senior Seminar English, watching planes crash in to the World Trade Center buildings and then the Pentagon. I was terrified that this could happen in my country (but never stopped to think of the countries where suicide bombs are the everyday-norm). And then I was awed as the people of our country wrapped themselves not in fear, but in Truth.
Three weeks ago I was expecting my first child. Terrified that I would break him, or hurt him in some fundamental way.
A week ago I was expecting my second child. Terrified that I would break her, or hurt her in some fundamental way.

My life continues to change, to go so fast that most of the time I feel like I'm on the merry-go-round, being turned faster and faster and faster until I can't hold on any longer. I know that I'm going to be thrown off and have no say in where I land or how hard.
But today. Today I am almost 30. Today I am the wife of my best friend. Today I am the mother of two of God's greatest works of art, and still terrified that I will hurt them in some fundamental way. Today I will go to sleep with a full tummy, in a warm bed. Today I will rest easy, not because of who our country has elected to lead us for the next four years, but because no matter where I go, what I do, how fast the merry-go-round is spinning, "The LORD my God will be with me wherever I go ..." (Joshua 1:9).

I blinked and Halloween was here and gone, election day was over (DJ voted for the "first time" at school!), as El went on her first pony ride ... oh, it goes so fast ... but it's so much more than o.k., no matter how fast it goes.

Favorite Teachers

Do you have a favorite teacher? From elementary school? Middle/Junior High, High School? College? I ask because Mike blogs, too, and the other day he got a random e-mail from his high school AP English teacher who he hasn't seen since high school (Class of 1989!). Wow. It really got me to thinking ...

My Mom is a teacher - she's taught 1st grade since completing her degrees in Elementary Education (B.A., Limestone College, Gaffney, SC) and Divergent Learning (Masters, Columbia College, Columbia, SC) and this year is teaching 5-year old Kindergarten. This year, she's teaching the child of a former student. I could really get into the socio-economics of her school's part of our county, but I won't get started on that today. Suffice it to say that my Mom has only been teaching for about 10 years, and you get the idea.

Myself, I've been blessed in that I've had not just one good teacher, but numerous great teachers who standout in my memory.

I'll skip 1st grade as it pretty much was the worst year of my life (chicken pox, scarlet fever, and I was stuck in the middle reading group the whole year!).

But Second Grade ... second grade was WOW. I had Mrs. Banks who was amazing. I mean, even the part where she made me sit behind the classroom door because I talked too much & then I only had the wall to talk to, even that was great. She was (is) a dynamic teacher in that she laughed a lot, let us laugh a lot and had the good sense to teach to the strengths of her students. And she took us on a field trip to Clemson University so that we saw what it was like to go to college. Mrs. Banks made me love school.

Skip a few years - not because Ms. Culbreth (3rd) or Mrs. Bridges (4th) weren't great teachers because they were - but to save some time a space for Mrs. Nichols (5th).

Mrs. Nichols was (is) a wonderful, sweet teacher. She loved (still loves) her students as if if each one is hers. And she taught me about forgiveness - mine and others. When Eden and I got in to an argument, Mrs. Nochols took us out into the hall and spoke with her sweet, patient voice. And explained that we were friends, and in order to stay friends, we had to be willing to forgive each other. And she added, we should remember that if we wanted God to forgive us, we had to be willing to fogive each other. That's a lesson I need to learn over and over again.

Middle School and Junior High are a blur - the first years of having multiple teachers - but Ms. Parker (6th grade Math), Mr. Andreasen (8th grade geography), Mrs. Kimbrell (8th grade lit) ... those are the ones who standout ...

And then there was high school ...
Mrs. Smith (9th grade English), Mr. cannon (10th grade English), Mr. Smith (11th & 12th AP English), Mrs. Putnam (11th grade AP U.S. History), Coach Fisher (9th grade World Geography), Herr Hope (10th, 11th & 12th grade German). Thanks to each of these people I can not only form a coheerrant thought, I know how to write it down. Thanks to each of these people, I can not only name a United States Supreme Court decision, I know its significance. Thanks to each of these people, I can find Russia, China, the Yang Tze River, The Andes Mountains, the Nile River and many, many other countries, Rivers, Mountain Ranges, countries and all of the 50 U.S. States on a Map. And I can find a bathroom, food, a hotel, an airport, the Post, and say hello the next time I'm in Germany, or during Oktoberfest. And they did it all creatively, kindly, harshly, determinedly. I was important to each of them and I knew it. I still know it. And they are important to me.

College professors are a whole other post, so ... Thank you to teachers. They give of their time, their energy, their money and themselves. And they do it for not nearly what they should get in monetary compensation. And they get up early, when it's rainy and cold or hot and humid. Teachers are amazing ...