Year in review!

Hello Everyone!!

God is so good!!! This has been quite a year! The Lord has blessed me so much! So much has happened this year I can hardly remember what happened at the beginning of this year. But I will start with:

We were able to host the Josts (yes, I can rhyme) for 2 weeks, we had a wonderful time of fellowship and building each other up. We went to a Jay's game again, and this time we got on the Jumbotron twice! :)

It was quite exciting. But then they had to leave.

Our family business this year has been doing very well, we are growing and expanding. I use those two words because growing means we are gaining ground in the market, and expanding means we are adding new services.

We went out West this year to visit friends; we stayed at the Josts, and helped pick up about 2500 bales!

We always went out in the morning and did a few loads and came back for breakfast, which was really awesome, apparently I ate lots. Hahaha. What can I say? It was really good! :)

Some of the things we did was tube down the Milk River, Went to Writing on Stone, ate at a Thai Restaurant (I think it was Thai, maybe it was Vietnamese?), played Wii and more. :)

We also visited my older brother Ryan and his wife Gillian along with their son Rhys. It was really awesome to see them again! :D Rhys really hit it off with Josiah.

Travelling out to Alberta wasn't fun and coming back to Ontario even more so, as we were leaving friends. The day before we left for Alberta I didn't go to sleep at night, well I went to sleep around 1:30AM and got up at like 3:30 to 4:00AM drove up to Toronto Airport, Zack and Zoe took a different plane than I, They went directly to Calgary. I went from Toronto to Edmonton and then to Calgary, I didn't get to sleep on the flight to Edmonton, on the way to Calgary the plane was like a massage chair and I fell asleep instantly. :) Although when I got to Calgary my eyes were really red from not enough sleep. Calgary Airport we took the Taxi to the Greyhound station, and can you guess what happened? Our bus got delayed! So we sat that for 2 more hours than we expected, I don't know how we whiled away the time, but the bus did come. We entered the bus for the drive to... A city that the name of escapes me, Close to Lethbridge, and from there Josiah, Joel and Emily Jost picked us up.

That concludes the travel to Alberta. The Travel back was tiring, I went directly to Toronto, and Zack and Zoe went to Edmonton first and then to Toronto.

The Business I've been starting has really been being blessed by God! He is so amazing and good to me. It is almost like he loves to do things that he knows we won't be able to repay him for.

A few years back I had been creating a program, but when it didn't take off I decided to start a few other ventures and come back to it later.

I recently got admitted to a Microsoft program called BizSpark, and what that does is gives you an MSDN visual Studio Team Suite Premium Subscription (which is premium access to lots of their software.), It also gives you access to their Windows Azure Service and they are adding more stuff to it all the time.

I got into it for free, which was amazing, as a few months ago I only dreamed of having something like this. The Requirements to get in were simple except I couldn't be a strictly service based business, The Lord used the product I had been making a few years before to allow me to qualify which was really amazing, I looked back over the last few years, and I must say it is amazing how the Lord pulled it all together. It is much easier to tell it in person. :D

With this subscription I downloaded Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition and that is what I'm using to write this letter.

I also downloaded Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64, to take advantage of the x64 technology in my computer.

I'm planning on setting up a server, so that I can host my own sites. The subscription I got covers lots of the start up costs. 

I'm hoping to be able to get a cell phone for my business soon, and I'll be able to get new cards! 

This year I've been studying Spanish, and I'm picking it up quite fast too! I'm thinking of going on a mission trip to Columbia, South America, which would be really awesome!

I've wanted to go to South America, Columbia in particular. This BizSpark program I got into will really help with me being able to go, Praise the Lord! :D God is so good! I'm not sure when I will go, I'm still praying, and the Lord is still revealing. :)

The Lord has been teaching me patience this year. I think I'm doing a good job. Haha

One trick to being patient I found is being optimistic about the situation. I do know that there is still a lot more levels of patience for me to be taught.

Another thing I've been learning is putting faith and trust in the Lord, which can be difficult sometimes, as we tend to try and solve the problem our self instead of letting the Lord take care of it. 

This year we went to Hatteras again! We had a blast! Swimming in the ocean, watching dolphins jump, and sitting under the sun on the beach. So fun!

The weather was really crazy the first few days there; I could feel the cottage almost rippling underneath us. There were some days that the waves were really powerful, it was really crazy. You can read about our "Adventures in the OBX" on my blog at http://beeboent.blogspot.com. It is really fun keeping a blog. I enjoy it, but I haven't written a post in awhile. I do know what my next post will be about though, and I'll tell you. My next post is going to be about our downstairs bathroom believe it or not. We have been redoing it and it isn't quite done, but I must say it is looking fantastic! I won't give you all the details, but I will in the post about it, and I will have some before or after pictures, so keep checking my blog for that post.

We also refinished our deck this year, and I must say it actually does look quite nice. Again you are able to see pictures of it at my blog.

I'm trying to think of anything else I may have forgotten to mention, ah yes I age another year on the 21st of this month, I'll be 19. Oh my! I'm getting to be quite ancient.

One of my favourite jokes to do with my age (it works before December 21st) is I'll say to someone for this year "I'm 18 and I'm turning 20 next year" I said that to some bankers and they all stopped and said "that doesn't make sense" so I explained that I hadn't my birthday yet. 

So I'm not really sure what else to say, so I will say, what was I going to say? Ah yes please follow me on my blog, I will try to keep it up to date with all that the Lord is doing for  me, which is really exciting, or at least I think so. If you think I'm neglecting to update my blog and I should do a post please tell me and I'll write one. :)

If I can think of anything else to add, I'll add it at a later date as I'm not going to send this quite yet!

At this point though it is over, 1,300 words. :)

May God Bless all of you and your family and give you a blessed new year and a Merry christmas with your families!!

Pass it on to anyone you would like to. :)

Adios amigo!

Regards,

Gabriel Hounsome (It says I spelt Hounsome wrong so I looked at a list of suggestions and one of them was "Handsome" haha)