Christmas Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow! has it been a year already.  Time has flown by and it appears that blogging has been the lowest of my priorities.  So I guess it's my yearly "catch up."

Joe continues to work as the MIRC chief of training.  It keeps him busy and often traveling.

Jamie is still trying out the homeschooling thing.  Keeping up with 3 kids ranging in age from 17 to 7 is tricky as she can't really dovetail any of their curriculum.  Add one very busy 4 year old and you will understand why blogging has been a low priority.

KayLee and Joshua are doing well in Spanish Fork.  KayLee will finish her master's in Social work this Spring. We are quite proud of her.  She is much better at keeping her blog up to date.  You can see all her info at Dunn Dunn Duuuuunnnnnn.

We loved having Ben home for 8 months.  He works for Alexandria Yellow cab.  It started as a temporary job helping to install screens in cabs and they liked him so well they hired him full time.  He worked with them here in Virginia until he moved to Mesa in September to go to MCC.  He still works for them taking calls.  Yea for comptuers and technology!! After some paperwork problems, he is finally registered to attend Spring Semester at Mesa Community College.

Darin is currently serving in the Arizona, Tempe mission.  If you recall, that is the same mission Ben served in.  And the most interesting thing is that they also had the same first area.  He is doing well, learning a lot and loving the people.

Melissa graduated from Mount Vernon High in May.  In September she flew the nest and moved to LaVerkin, UT where she lived with Aunt Sherece and Uncle Tom and worked at Dairy Queen.  In November, she moved back to Lansing, Kansas.  She will be working at a mailing shop and attending KCKCC working towards her CNA.

DeeAnn decided that she'd try homeschooling this year so she is taking some of her Junior year classes from BYU independent study and some of them from her mother.  She is enjoying setting her own schedule and moving at her own pace.  She auditioned for a musical with a HomeSchool theatre group and will be a Narrator in an upcoming production of Aladin Jr.  She keeps busy attending all of the practices.

Adam continues to work on scouts.  His goal is to have his Eagle by the end of 2013.  He also continues to homeschool.  He's a big help around the house and is always willing to babysit.

EmmaLee is 7 and amazes us with her vocabulary.  She uses such interesting words.  We wonder where she learns them.  She's a great big sister to Nathan and loves playing with him.  She joined a homeschool group called Classical Conversations this year and it's unbelievable all the things she has memorized.

Nathan continues to grow and entertain us all.  His imagination has really blossomed.  He loves angry birds and usually spends his day playing with a myriad of toys but always including his angry birds.  He's also joined the "brony" ranks as he loves playing "My Little Pony" with his sister.

2011 has been quite an eventful year for us.  We started it out on the beach in Florida as we'd spent Christmas with Joe's mom.  We spent another week on Virginia beach in August.  Half of our kids have now graduated from high school and moved into the "grown-up" world.  (And Jamie likes to say Half my kids have graduated but sadly one hasn't even started school yet." Jamie was in an accident and totaled our car so we had to get our other van back from Melissa in Utah which precipitated her move to Kansas and got Ben home for Thanksgiving.

We'll be having a quite Christmas at home as three of our children will be away.  But we are very excited to see Melissa!!!