�Cautious optimism.� That�s the headline on Florida Trend today as I write this first newsletter of the year. Like many of you, we�ve experienced the long, and at times grueling, road to recovery, watching the various markers of our business closely to see if this week, this month, this year will mark a new beginning.

But this day, this week, this month, is a new beginning! Each January 1, we reset our goals, our plans, our dreams, and look with a fresh expectancy to what lies ahead. The kids are headed back to school or to their adult lives, the decorations are coming down, and, perhaps, the weather will even cool off a little bit. Our calendars roll over to a fresh year, and the twelve months ahead, with all their uncertainty and surprise, shimmer like a faint sunrise over the mountains.

Successes and disappointments, joys and frustrations, laughter and sorrow; all will be present again with each of us this year, as they have in all the years past, and all the years to come. In the classic western movie, Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is visiting with Doc Holliday as Doc lies in the hospital, contemplating the end of his life.

�All I ever wanted was a normal life,� Doc complains.

�There�s no such thing as a normal life, Doc,� Wyatt responds. �There�s just life.�

Last week I enjoyed the privilege of sitting in court at a hearing with attorneys I have known for over 25 years, and attorneys I�ve known for only a year or two. Being members of this �small town� has given us great joy and satisfaction, and we are honored to serve alongside each of you. Our prayer for you and your staff and your families is that you will treasure what you have been blessed with, that you will share what you have been given, and that you will seek the eternal rather than the temporal.

As 2014 blossoms with its �cautious optimism,� 2013 and its excitement and disappointment starts to fade. With each of you, our clients and our friends, we look forward to the journey ahead.

Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Mark and Wendy Murnan