So This Is the New Year

New Years greetings to everyone! And belated Christmas wishes as well. We hope that the Christmas season gave you a chance to pause and marvel in the awesome gift given to mankind so many years ago.

2007 was a busy and blessed year for us. Many of you have seen our Christmas news snippet with our card, but for those who haven't you can view it here. I also posted the collage of Caleb pictures from the card below - he's in a non-smiling (mostly goofy) phase, so we put together the best shots we could get of him.

In shorter terms, a lot has happened since my last post. Let's see, there was Thanksgiving. We attended the traditional family reunion/brouhaha in Akron OH (Matt's mom's side of the family). That was fun as always. Shortly thereafter, Nicole got word from her company that they wanted her to stay on as a part-time professional (her current job) after we move, rather than becoming an hourly contractor. That was great news since it simplifies things for us and she keeps her vacation/holiday time (of course, she'll be required to work 24 hours each week).

Then on the last day of November we got some difficult news - the buyer we had for our house decided to terminate the contract. We weren't given a real reason, except that the contract allowed her to terminate on the basis of the inspection. BUT the inspection was as perfect as you can get (only thing was a GFI needed to be replaced). So we figure that she must have gotten cold feet and decided to use the inspection clause to back out. We haven't yet released her deposit since we still don't have a good reason to, but in all likelihood we won't see much if any of the money. The really annoying thing is that we lost two good weeks of showing the house. We immediately put it back active and have had several showings since, but no offers. We're relying on the Lord to bring us another buyer (and one who will follow through on the deal) on His timing.

The second week of December brought some relief for the whole family as I took my last two final exams (they were doozies) and completed my Masters program. My overall program consisted of ten classes (no thesis), five of which I took during the calendar year of 2007. It's a huge relief to be done, and to have my tuition money back from my company.

Our month wrapped up with our traditional weeklong Christmas trip to Grand Rapids to spend time with family. We left on the 21st and just returned on Sunday the 30th. It was a great time to relax, catch up with family members and friends, and catch up on some sleep (thanks Mimi and Papa for getting up with Caleb). Unfortunately we left our camera at home, so I can't post any pictures from the holiday. I will update the webshots page with what I do have sometime soon though.

So what does 2008 bring for the Browns? Well, January should be busy with our move hopefully picking up some momentum. My company is being very flexible, so we plan to stay in Pittsburgh (at least for a little while) and I'll start doing some of my new work from here. We also will be back to Michigan (this time Kalamazoo) for Nicole's brother David's wedding in a couple of short weeks. And from there, who knows. We wish everyone all the best for 2008!