Goodbye 2007...

The time has come to bid farewell to 2007. It has been quite an interesting year in my life.

I started the year in Atlanta with 20,000+ college students and young adults at Passion. It was an anointed conference. Francis Chan brought the message of the year talking about the throne of God and the glory of heaven. The David Crowder Band, Charlie Hall, and Chris Tomlin led us to worship our exalted King of Glory. It was also the event that cemented in my wife's heart to go on a mission trip to Russia. January was also Alison's birthday, but I won't tell you how old she is. February brought my son Drew's 6th birthday and the 11th Valentine's Day I would share with my bride. March brought a trip back to Mexico to build houses in Neuevo Progresso and spend time with some great men and some girls from my college group. It also saw the beginning of Nathan and Drew's baseball season with me as the assistant coach of Nathan's team, the Giants.

April brought John David's 3rd birthday, the beginning of the Red Sox season, and saw my wife depart for her trip to Russia. May saw her return home a much different person. It also saw me back to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. It's a much different place and certainly will never be the same. June saw an end to the Little League season with our baseball team the Giants finishing second to the Rangers in an epic battle. It also saw
my beloved Mississippi State Diamond Dawgs return to Omaha for the first time since 1998. Unfortunately, they went 2 and out.

July saw my annual family trip to the Beach. We went to Destin for 4 days with the college students from my church and to Panama City Beach for 7 days with my wife's family. July also saw Nathan's first time making All-Stars in baseball. August brought the kids back to school (finally!).

September was perhaps one of the greatest months of the year. First of all, it's my birth month and saw me turning 39. It was the beginning of a crazy college football season and a exciting one for Mississippi State. After experiencing a blowout to LSU the first week, State would go on to win 4 of the next 5 games. But the highlight of the year was my wonderful wife's present to me for my birthday. She gave my son and me a dream trip to Boston for the Red Sox/Yankees game at Fenway. It was an awesome experience despite the fact that we lost and a great weekend. We went to the Friday game where Boston blew a 5-run lead in the eighth with Okijima and Papelbon on the mound. On Saturday, we toured Boston on a trolley and also toured "Old Ironsides", the U.S.S. Constitution.

October saw Nathan's 8th birthday and a trip to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta. Catalyst was filled with great messages from Andy Stanley, Francis Chan, Craig Groeschel, Rick Warren, and Dave Ramsey. November saw Alison and I celebrate 10 years of marriage. I love her more than ever before and still consider myself a very blessed man. It also saw my Red Sox win the World Series for the 2nd time in 4 years!December brought the holidays and finally today, the end of the year.

Notable news from 2007 - The Peter Pan Peanut Butter recall (glad I choose Jif), the tornado that ripped through the high school in Enterprise, AL, Don Imus opened his mouth one too many times, 32 students were tragically killed by a crazed student at Virginia Tech, 8 people were killed by a gunman in a mall in Omaha, 4 people were killed at a YWAM school in Colorado and at New Life Church in Colorado Springs by the same gunman. Jordan Sparks won American Idol, Paris Hilton went to jail, Brittney Spears shaved her head and went to rehab, Bob Barker retired from "The Price is Right", the Sopranos ended (I never watched it anyway), The IPhone made it's debut, a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis - killing 13, a mine collapsed in Utah killing 6 miners and 3 rescuers, wildfires in Southern California...again, the writers go on strike in Hollywood, probably delaying Season 7 of 24 (that grates me big-time).

Sports - Florida wins the Football National Championship and NCAA Basketball Championship for the second time in a row, Peyton and the Colts won the Super Bowl, the San Antonio Spurs won the NBA Championship...again, and the Red Sox win the World Series! Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's HR record (*), Michael Vick gets arrested for Dog Fighting, Barry Bonds gets arraigned for lying to a grand jury about using steroids (big surprise), OJ gets arrested again (another surprise), and Sean Taylor gets murdered.

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is to look back at all the people who left this world the past year. Notable Deaths in 2007 include: Anna Nicole Smith, Former NBA star Dennis Johnson, legendary football coach Eddie Robinson, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Rev. Jerry Falwell, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, Tammy Faye (Baker) Messner, Liz Claiborne, Merv Griffin, Leona Helmsley, Luciano Pavarotti, Robert Goulet, softball King "Fast" Eddie Feigner, Former MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Bob Evans (the dude the restaurants are named after), Norman Mailer, Evil Kneivel, singers Dan Fogleberg and Ike Turner, wrestler Chris Benoit, Biblical Scholar Bruce Metzger, Actor Tom Poston (from the Newhart show), Dick Wilson (aka, Mr. Whipple), comedian Charles Nelson Reilly, Yankees shortstop "Scooter" Phil Ruzzuto, film critic Joel Siegel, legendary football coach Bill Walsh, the aforementioned Sean Taylor, and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

All in all, 2007 was quite a year. I hope that 2008 will see me losing about 35 pounds, reading God's Word more, and getting some major work done on my doctoral work. I hope to have a lot more memories with my wife and boys and a lot more fun working with the great cast I get to work with at Westwood.

Here's to you 2007!