2010 Review!

Dear Friends and Family,

Most of you reading this probably clicked on the link from Facebook...or you got our Christmas card and saw the sticker inside! I hope you enjoyed our card. Andy-photographer-extrodinaire took our picture for us. What would we do without him? Here we are trying to go green again (remember our wedding invites?).  This way we can show you more pictures and come back and edit things we regret saying after we post it! (I would say "jk"...but I'm not). hehe. This way, our letter is much more interactive as well, so I hope you're sitting down.  Alright, on to our Christmas letter...

Is it just me, or do we all say "I can't believe how quickly this year has flown by!" every year? It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in my parents' basement, trying to keep my eyes open, celebrating the new year.  My biggest question is...what will we call it when we reminisce about the year 2010. We've got Y2K, and then '01 through '09.  I've heard a few people awkwardly call it "oh ten", but that just isn't right.  I suppose Twenty-Ten has a nice ring to it. And then we'll have "twenty-eleven", not as smooth, but better than "oh eleven".

Enough of my rambling, I'm here to tell you about the great things that happened in 2010.  January through March, Stu and I were still living in our apartment. I don't remember much about that time...except for waking up at 6am, while it was freezing cold, and going for a run almost every day.  We trained and trained and trained, and on March 21, twenty-ten, Stuart, Jake and I ran our first half-marathon.  I blogged all about that process earlier. It was quite the undertaking but we were very proud of ourselves. Upon completing the race, we took advantage of the 50% discount and signed up for next year's race too. You'd think we were actually runners...ha!

April 5, 2010 marked our one year anniversary.  That flew by just as fast as everything else. We did a little stay-cation in Atlanta to celebrate. We kicked it off with the incredible Good Friday service at Passion City Church.  We stayed at a hotel in Buckhead for the weekend, went to the Dialogue in the Dark exhibit, used some Groupons for dinner, and just had a great time pretending we were tourists.  I'd recommend that to everyone. Look how happy we are just driving around Atlanta...

Once summer rolled around it was crazy as usual. Stuart took middle schoolers to Louisville, KY and Student Life Summer Camp.  We both went with high school teams to New York, NY and Panama. Those were all awesome. We also had the great opportunity to stay at a friends condo near Daytona Beach, FL. That was a week of paradise! While in Florida we stopped by to see the Hembree's AND the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Check that one off the bucket list! Another fun trip, that wasn't really during the summer (but over Labor Day weekend), was when we went with our good friends, the Brophy's, to Jenica's hometown of Shannon, IL.  We had a blast learning all about corn, getting to know Jenica's family, and we even spent a day in Chicago. Awesome.

Two days after returning home from our trip to Panama, we bought a house! It's a nice 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom townhouse located about 15 minutes from work.  We love it because of the two car garage, large kitchen,  swimming pool across the street, and ample parking places for our guests. We also love having two extra bedrooms. One is always ready for guests to stay and the other is Stuart's office.  It's great. Have a look:

Here's the main level:

The upstairs...

The basement/garage...

October 3rd = Half marathon number 2.  We like to think of it as completing a full marathon...do you think that counts? Two halves in a year = a whole.  This one was much much more difficult.  Since we had already trained for one race, we thought it might be good not to train for the second race just to see how we would do.  Ok, or we're just lazy. As great as our new house is...it does lack the awesome workout facility that our apartment had. And when it's 85 degrees outside with 100% humidity, running does not sound that appealing.  We could definitely feel the difference on our second race. I had to give a little pep-talk to my legs a couple of times during the race just so they would keep moving.  However, at the end of the race we had to walk because I was having some intense pain in my knee.  I hated that.  I told Stu he could keep running, but of course, he stayed by my side the whole time. (More about my knee in a minute...)

Another big thing this year has been Stuart's videography.  Aside from his multiple wedding videos, he did a video for a mission organization, one with "stillmotion"for the NFL Network, and went to India with Andy to donate their gifts and abilities in videos and photos for an awesome ministry called As Our Own.  God has blessed him with the amazing talent of capturing moments on film, and He is using that ability to bless others. It's awesome.

Yes, 2010 was a success, and it's not over! Stuart and I are meeting my family in South Africa to spend Christmas with his family! Christmas during the summer?? YAY!!!...screeeccchhhh! As most of you know by now, those plans have changed quite a bit! Last Wednesday I started feeling some severe abdominal pain. I went to the doctor on Friday, and on Saturday morning had my appendix removed. We were supposed to fly out on Sunday and meet my family in Dallas so we could all travel to Cape Town together.  Unfortunately we had to cancel that flight, but my family proceeded with their plans. After many hard discussions and even more tears, we decided to cancel our trip altogether.  We hope our families have a great time of bonding and creating memories. We'll enjoy making memories of our own here on the home front :) Trying to make the best of things...

(okay so I was fake sleeping in this picture...there's no possible way to try to be photogenic like this)

.....AND THIS IS WHY WE'RE GLAD WE CAN GO BACK AND EDIT....my family never made it to Cape Town after all!! London airport was snowed in, so American Airlines re-routed them through Brazil, but Brazil did not have enough seats for everyone on their outbound flights. LOONNGG Story short...they will be in Colorado for Christmas and we might be joining them! It's very strange and very unfortunate that none of us will be joining Stuart's family.  A years worth of planning, for what? If you're sitting there shaking your head with confusion, welcome to our lives for the past week!  And I think I'll just stop typing now in case something else happens. What a strange turn of events this has been....We don't know why, but we just trust that God is with us through all of this and He is Sovereign...

Despite all of the Christmas Craziness, we have so much to be thankful for. It really has been a phenomenal year. We praise God for the ways that He blesses us, even though we recognize how unworthy we are.  We strive to make His name famous in everything that we do. He is good. We truly believe that. His plans supersede anything we try to force.

Looking forward to Twenty Eleven gives me mixed emotions.  Remember that knee situation I mentioned? Turns out that 3 years ago, when I fell skiing, I tore my ACL, unbeknownst to myself. All this time I have waited and waited for my knee to "heal", thinking it was something else.  I went to the doctor several times to get it checked out, but it wasn't until I was running our second half marathon and slightly tore my miniscuis in that same knee, that I had an MRI done. Needless to say, the doctor will give me a new ACL and repair my meniscus in February.  Fun stuff.  Can't wait to be back in the hospital. I think the worst part about that is that I have to take out all my jewelry again. What a pain ;) Don't worry, I'll still be by Stuart's side during that next half marathon...cheering him on from the sidewalk!

We do have sweet expectations for 2011 as well. Andy and Jenica are expecting their first baby boy at the beginning of February.  Our great friends Gretchen and Micah are getting married in April.  We are taking another trip of high school students to Cape Town (Lord willing!). Stuart has many more excellent video opportunities.  It will be a good year, we know it.

We hope all of you have a very merry, Christ-centered Christmas. We are grateful for our "Georgia Family" here and everyone else who loves and supports us.  We pray that your lives will be blessed in 2011. Hopefully next year's Christmas card will end on a much calmer note!  At least this one has created memories for all of us. Love to you and your family!

-Paige & Stuart

...In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Romans 8:37-39