27 and counting

So, today I turned 27. Yikes! I can't believe how quickly the time has flown in the past year. There have been so many things that have happened and our life (hopefully) will slow down much more in this coming year. So, since I wanted to use this blog as sort of a journal, I thought I'd just quickly jot down the major events of the year.

1. On my 26th birthday I had a miscarriage. I was so upset by it, but I can see how my body probably couldn't have handled carrying a baby and dealing with mom and her passing. Heavenly Father has a much better understanding of timing than we do and in a little over seven weeks we'll be welcoming that long awaited baby into our family.

2. I dropped out of graduate school. I never thought that I could refer to myself as a dropout. UVSC will hopefully have their graduate program up and going in a few years. Maybe by that point I will have a much better handle on my life and will finish up what I almost halfway completed!

3. I was promoted to a senior auditor. It has given me more responsibility and more pay which enabled Jake & I to qualify for our home loan.

4. Mom's passing. It has been extremely difficult to get over having her gone, but at the same time it has provided so many blessings in our family.

5. Fixing up and selling our house (just as the market turned from a seller's market to a buyer's market). Boy - we couldn't have picked a better time to sell the house!

6. Buying Mom's home - we are so grateful to be in a bigger home and are especially grateful to those that have and will help us keep the house.

7. Being released from nursery!!! I absolutely loved being in the nursery and spending time singing with the kids and Elisabeth. However, after two years I really needed a break. I really missed Relief Society!

8. Jake's long awaited graduation - in a couple of weeks Jake will officially have his bachelor's degree. (I'm thinking that I should call it my second bachelor's degree for dealing with having to have him be in school for the last 5 1/2 yrs of marriage:). Really though, Jake has earned it by himself and I'm very proud of his accomplishment.

Those things don't even begin to encompass the other blessings that have come such as Jake being given his internship, passing his classes this summer (as a gift by his teachers) when mom was dying and Sharon's kids were living with us, and Jake being given a pell grant in retrospect that he was unaware that he qualified for.

Perhaps, though, the main change that has come has not been one that can be seen as 1 event. It has come as a result of the personal spiritual stretching of the year. I can say with a stronger assurity that my testimony has become deeper so much that it has become the cornerstone of my life for which to make it thru the day by day trials. Although I am far from where I would like to be spiritually, I can see the Lord's hand is in all things and that if we put him first in our lives, things will work out and we will have peace as a constant companion.

Wow - I didn't mean for it to turn into a sermon, but those are the feelings that I have felt today. Anyway, tonight Jake, Tammy, Ben & I are going to Macaroni Grill for dinner and Erin is babysitting our kids. I'm excited for an evening of being able to eat my dinner without someone else climbing on my lap and digging their fingers in it first! (I usually lose my appetite at about that point in most of our dinners!) I'm sure that it is going to be a fun evening!