Happy New Year

I love this time of year. Back-to-school has always seemed like New Year's to me - this is when everything is fresh and new and you have a clean slate on the year ahead (Bubba's Mom did a great post on this - read it here). This year is especially full of fresh starts for the Bubba's Sis Family - we are emerging from a Season of Change that we never would have anticipated just a few months ago.

To begin with, we have the new house. You know about that. We love it here and we are so happy with how everything worked out. Life is good.

Tomorrow the kiddos go back to school. Daughter doesn't have to change schools since she is in a district-wide magnet program for gifted kids; tomorrow she starts 8th grade - her last year of junior high school. She is very excited. Little Son will be at a new school for 5th grade this year - his last year of elementary school - but he is looking upon it as a new adventure and an opportunity to make new friends. Coincidentally, one of his two teachers is a friend I went to junior high and high school with, and ran into at our reunion just last month - small world, isn't it? Navy Son is starting classes at the Naval Academy Prep School - he has a fresh buzz haircut and is ready to go! He even made the cross-country team at the school.

There are other changes for us as well. Daughter and I have decided to take a break from dancing. She took for 9 years at the studio where I danced growing up, the same studio I came back to to teach 5 years ago. But Daughter's passion is drama, not dance, and she has made the mature decision to focus her energy on what she loves: acting. My ankles have given me problems the past couple of years, and the fun of teaching dance was wearing thin, so Daughter's decision to move on made an easy transition for me to move on as well. I will continue to do some part-time warranty filing at Hubby's job while the kids are at school, and enjoy being home with them in the afternoons instead of running off to the dance studio four days a week. It's all good.

We celebrated a fresh start for another family today - a family from our small group at church who welcomed the Daddy home from Iraq this past week. This was his second tour of duty in Iraq, and boy are they glad to have him back home!! It was quite a celebration today, with lots of friends and family there to welcome him home. Home safe and alive. God is good.

So Happy New Year to you and yours! The best is yet to come!