Goodbye 2008

Well, I would have to say that this year has been the most eventful year of my life. The first third of the year was packed full of the "finance core" of classes at BYU which was the most intense semester I had. It was loaded with classes like investments, economics, corporate finance, and corporate accounting. In the middle of all that I was in search of an internship for the summer, which as many of you know, I was able to get the one that I most wanted as a financial analyst for a hospital.

So the middle third of the year was filled with moving to St. George, UT for the summer and doing the analysis of multimillion dollar projects for the hospital. Before moving we sold both of our cars and bought a minivan. During the summer I also took a motorcycle safety course and bought my first motorcycle. By the end of summer I had to sell my motorcycle as I had become a single dad of our two children. I also got rid of the minivan (with great joy), and got a newer Honda Civic. Also, before I finished my internship I accepted an offer to work at the hospital full time after graduation. My first "real" job!

The last four months have been challenging but wonderful. I finished my last semester of school (I was taking 18 credits!) and I have grown a lot as I have been the sole provider for two kids. I finished school on December 17th (with great grades for the semester by the way) and made it up to Coeur d' Alene for a week to enjoy Christmas at "home" and then got back down to Springville and packed everything up and took off two days later to get back down here to St. George.

So here I am at the close of 2008, thankful for all that I have been able to accomplish and thankful for the many challenges I have faced. I know that I have achieved many things and have grown immensely because of the adversity that I have faced. I am also very thankful for how things have turned out. The timing of just about everything this year has been beyond amazing (the timing of how I got accepted for my internship, the timing of my divorce, the timing of having such a great job in such a bad economy, and finding a wonderful place to live that is very inexpensive because of the bad economy).

I look forward to what 2009 will bring but I highly doubt there will be nearly as much happening as what happened this year. I mean, seriously, how can you compare anything to a year of intense semesters, an internship, first motorcycle, divorce, becoming a single parent, graduation, and starting your first job out of college?