Cheers and reflections

Happy New Year folks!

I'm starting this year feeling energized and hopeful for a blessed 2008. How did we do last year? These were my 2007 goals:

• Start blogging - well, as you can see this one got a check mark for the year. Intentionally so, the first post for 2008 is my 100th entry, planning to keep on keeping on this year.
• Continue exercise regimen - kept up with this one as well, with over 1,000 miles logged running and 800 miles on the bike.
• Max out annual retirement savings - Brian and I both maxed out our retirement savings this year, with several months to spare at the end of the year. IRA will also get funded this year.
• Read a book a month - Completed over a dozen books this year, so that's more than 1 book per month. It really helped that I got hooked on the Josephine B series, that was 3 books in a really short period.
• Continue to progress professionally - Check mark with a promotion earlier in the year, and got in some great training as well.
• Stay in better contact with friends afar - Check, mostly via email/blogs but doing a pretty good job staying connected.

I can't say that 2008's objectives are going to be all that different from last year's (minus start blogging), as these are life objectives for me that don't change much from year to year. There are a couple of new to-do's on our list this year:

• Continue to travel a good bit this year - Have a blast on our big 10 year anniversary trip!
• Purchase new things for the house - mainly dining room furniture and new washer/dryer (ours are over 10 years old!).
• Run a marathon - already scheduled for late March, first one in over 8 years
• Take the girls to several theater shows - we have tickets to the next Imagination Celebration show, as well as My Little Pony live. As soon as Annie goes on sale, we'll be getting those as well. Emma is really into live productions right now, with music and dancing so we'll continue to cultivate her love for the arts as much as we can.
• Start visiting schools for Kindergarten programs - early next year, it will be time to decide where to enroll Emma for kindergarten, which means we will start looking at the end of this year. We have several options, all within our school district:
  1) keep her in Montessori/private kindergarten
  2) TCA charter school, thankfully I put both girls on the waiting list when Camryn was born, this one has a long wait
  3) DaVinci Academy, public school focused on the arts
  4) DCC, our neighborhood school which is a math/science magnate and she could start and finish - it is pre-K through 12th.
  So, as you can see, we have lots of options, all of which are wonderful schools...it will just be deciding which would be best for her.