A new year...

These are my dogs Timber and Scooter. There is no particular reason that they are on this post other than to say I really like this picture of them...they both need to get groomed in the worst way!

As a new year begins there is a ton of things already happening in the Patrick area of life. Here is an update:

1.) After 31 years in the ministry our Pastor, Rodger Russell has retired. This brings about a change at Holladay but one that I am excited for. It does mean that I will be busy to quite busy with all of my new responsibilities and other said fun stuff. Rodger posted the reasons for his retirement on his blog and you can read all about it here. They leave to follow a dream...God Bless and the best of luck to the Russells.

2.) We had a good time over the holidays and were able to re-connect with friends and family. We saw our out of towner friends/family Brandy... the Umbriacos, Kevin King, Jordan, and Holly. We capped off the holiday season with a New Year's Eve Lock-in with the youth group. We had a great turn out and had fun hanging out with our new friends from Mount Oly.

3.) Rachael and I are back for yet another semester. I have 15 credit hours and Rachael has 17. We just started so it will take a few weeks in order to settle into a routine. After the holidays though, I am ready for routine. We have also entered as our friend Dave would put it...Strict Training as we are seeking to eat better and exercise more for the new year. Hopefully after watching the marathon of the Biggest Loser I can get motivated to lose a few.

4.) Books, books, and more books. I have read several books over the past couple of months and will be posting about them in the near future. It would be cool to get a conversation going about a few of them. The books are:
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller
Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants to Die by David Crowder and Mike Hogan

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