CHRISTMAS LETTER 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Another year almost complete! Time just flies!  This is a summary of 2012 for our family.

Gra is now almost 6 years old.  She started kindergarten and she absolutely loves it!  She is learning many sight words and she is so proud of her accomplishments.  She performed in her first ballet recital in June and continues to take ballet.  Gra is our fun loving wannabe teenager but we love her as she keeps us young.

Cee is 13 and in the 8th grade.  He is an officer at the junior high and this is keeping him busy doing lots of service projects and attending the school sporting events.  He is still competing in gymnastics.  He participated in the spelling bee and received second place.  What an awesome accomplishment after all those years of practice. He earned a scholarship and a bunch of other prizes.  He is working hard on scouts and should be ready for his Eagle really soon.  We are so grateful to have a son in our home.  It’s refreshing!

Sid is 16 and a junior in high school.  She is in dance company.  She loves to dance and she is very good at it!  She still dances ballet and she got three awesome parts in the Nutcracker this year.  She was a Reed Flute, Snow, and Waltz.  She also choreographed a dance; for the Winter Concert, that was very creative.  She’s working on her driving hours and on finishing her personal progress so she can get her license.

Car is 18 and graduated from high school this year.  She participated in her last ballet recital as a senior.  She worked at Cherry Hill for the summer.  She wanted to go to UVU but at the last minute she realized she wasn’t ready and decided to wait until January.  In the meantime she has been working at a daycare center. Now she is registered and ready to move out at the beginning of next year.  We love having Car around--not only does she make us happy, but she has saved us many times as a chauffeur when we have needed help driving kids around.  We will surely miss her when she goes to school.

Kai is 21 and is in her senior year at BYU.  She is in the Family Studies program with an emphasis in fashion design.  She is a wonderful designer and will be participating in a fashion show in February at BYU as one of the designers.  Kai had the opportunity to do an internship in Boston at Anthropologie this past summer.  She lived with my brother’s family and she thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery and environment.  She continues to work at the BYU bookstore and does some face painting on the side.  

Lis graduated with her Master’s in School Counseling in the spring.  She was blessed to get a job at a charter school that services 7-12 grades.  It is a half time  job  which is perfect since G is still in kindergarten.  She is loving her job and the opportunity to help students succeed.  It’s definitely a change of pace trying to balance a job and a family at the same time.

Cas changed positions this past year from operations manager to database administrator within the district.  The district also moved his entire department to Layton and that has doubled his commute from 7 to 15 minutes!  He is busy working with the young men in the ward and is always planning activities and campouts.  He is an amazing husband and father.  He has picked up more of the family duties since L started working.

Some of the events that we all participated in this year include:  A Disney Cruise in April.  We wanted to plan a fun vacation this year since we had two graduates and  it’s getting harder and harder to  plan these as everyone is growing up.  A Disney Cruise was perfect because it would cater to the various ages of our children and parents.  We flew to Florida and spent a day at Universal Studio’s (Mainly Harry Potter World).  The next day we boarded the cruise ship and went to the Bahamas and Disney’s private island Castaway Cay.  It was a dream vacation for us but it left us wanting to do it again in the future (maybe with extended family.)

We had the opportunity to participate in the filming of the Bible Videos that the LDS church is producing.  Cas grew out his beard (he had never done this before and doesn’t ever want to do it again, but it was worth it so that he could have the chance to be on the set).  Cas was there for the filming of “Caiaphas questioning Jesus' authority”. Lis and the older girls participated in the filming of “Jesus feeds the 5000”.  It still has not been released yet but we are anxiously awaiting its release.  It was a very hot day but such a spiritual experience for all of us.  Cee and Gra participated a few times last year. We may or may not be in the videos when they are released but either way, it was a testimony building experience for us all.

We had a year full of blessings.  Not to say that we did not have trials, because we all do at one time or another, but we’re always amazed at how the blessings come even amidst the trials.  We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year!