The year ended with a boom and passed in the blink of an eye here in Central Texas. Here's a quick overview of some of the year's biggest stories.

Wild weather certainly made news this year. The year started with a shiver when Austin was iced over in January. And things didn't slow down as the year progressed.

"I've lived here my whole life and I've never seen it do this here, ever," Marble Falls resident Sheila Smith said during the heavy floods in late June. Her daughter's mobile home was practically washed away.

Twenty-one inches of rain dumped down in the hill country which caused massive flooding and widespread damage.

The year was laced with milestone openings: the Dell Children's Medical Center opened its doors in June, flags finally flew at the new Mexican-American Cultural Center, and the Austin Music Hall got a long-awaited makeover.

Toll roads opened up throughout the region, and high-rise condos shifted the skyline.

The Intel building came down with a bang in February, marking the end of the 1990s tech boom.

There was a changing of the guards at the Austin Police Department. In June, interim chief Cathy Ellison was replaced by new chief Art Acevedo. A federal investigation had been launched looking into the department's use of force. In the same month, the fatal shooting of Kevin Brown led to the closure of Chester's night club, and veteran Officer Sgt. Michael Olsen lost his job.

For the first time in a long time, Speaker of the House Tom Craddick faced opposition for his seat.

State leaders also prompted a shake up at the Texas Youth Commission in late spring, after allegations surfaced of inmate abuse. That investigation is still underway.

August ushered in some highly-publicized murder trials as well.

Paul Devoe, the man accused of killing five Central Texans on a killing spree that started in Marble Falls and ended in Pennsylvania, was returned to the Lone Star state to face murder charges.

Colton Pitonyak was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the murder of Jennifer Cave. Laura Hall was sentenced in September to six years as his accomplice for dismembering Cave's body and facilitating a getaway trip to Mexico.

There was a much more peaceful ending for a little boy who was at the center of a controversial end-of-life care debate. "I don't want nobody else to be in this position," Emilio's mother Catarina Gonzales said. Emilio Gonzales passed away in May of Leigh's disease. He was just 19 months old.

"Save the children!" protestors chanted. The treatment of detained immigrants and their children at the T. Don Hutto family residential center drew hundreds of protestors to the streets of Taylor almost every weekend this year.

And another neighborhood united to fight the Super Wal-Mart planned for Northcross Mall.

On July 11, the nation lost former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. The native Central Texan will always be remembered for her environmental efforts that painted the nation's landscape with wildflowers.

Those were some of the major stories that made headlines in 2007.