Hello!.....

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! :) Thank you so much for the sweet cards and emails! Your Christmas/New Year cards should be arriving soon in your mailbox, if they haven't already. I am really sorry that I was so late getting them sent out. I tried.

We have had a wonderful Christmas! First of all, Charlie got a week off from work, unexpectedly. It wasn't great because it was a week without pay or unemployment (long story) but it was great because we got to spend a lot of time and have a fantastic Christmas week instead of a rushed week. Thank you, Lord, for that. See, there is good in everything, even financial difficulty. :)

So, our Christmas spending was cut back even more, but that's okay, because we just focused more on important things and the true meaning of the Christmas season. Charlie bought us the book, "The Love Dare", as one of our Christmas presents. We have just started doing this and already Satan has attacked us in almost every area of our marriage. It has been rough but it's funny, too, because we just fight back that much harder and WE are winning! If you haven't started this book, I cannot recommend anything any more than I can recommend this book! It's great!

The girls have had a fun filled time with their Daddy and with cousins and visiting family. It's been a wild week and we are looking forward to settling down this week and just getting back into our groove. :)

Charlie's dad is doing pretty good, considering. He has a really great attitude about everything. He's good like that. :) They did not find any cancer in his bones and it is a really early stage so, those are all great things. Hopefully, they can take care of it with radiation. Please continue to pray. We sure do appreciate all of your prayers. :)

We are looking at a rough year again. HOPEfully, things will improve finanacially and otherwise. We are praying and prayerfully considering some options available to us. Please pray for Charlie as he makes a lot of decisions for the future of our family. He really is trying so hard to seek God's will and direction in his life. I am SO proud of him and in all of almost 11 years (next week) of marriage, I have never seen him walk as closely to the Lord as I see him walking now. It gives me goosebumps just talking about it! :)

*Well, I have to go lay clothes out for church tomorrow and read my love dare for tomorrow and get some sleep. I will try to post pictures of our crazy kids and their wild antics at Christmas if I can get the computer to cooperate! (Because of the week off of work, I will have to wait a little while longer on our computer, that's okay, the Lord is sure teaching me how to wait patiently!) :)

Happy New Year!

Julie