Merry Christmas 2018

So, what started out as a family blog has turned into a once a year digital Christmas Letter.

2018 What a  year!!!  Here's the lowdown on us.

JOE is still teaching at Milford High School.  He has settled into his 2 year and is really enjoying the challenge of teaching music in a tiny high school (200 kids 7-12 grades).  He spent the summer working on the sprinkling system in our yard and getting the garden plot ready so hopefully we can learn to garden next summer.  He also got a  new grill and a smoker box and has had fun learning to grill and smoke meats.  We had a delicious smoked turkey for Thanksgiving.

JAMIE spent the first part of the year doing what she always does but in June applied for and got her dream job....a librarian.  Our tiny Minersville library has just two employees and she is the assistant librarian.  But as such she gets to catalog new books, shelve books, check books in and out for patrons, discuss her favorite books with patrons, and be the story time lady (her second dream job.)
Then in November she also started substituting at all the local schools.  After 30 year as a stay at home mom, she is finding a new challenge in juggling working and still helping kids with homework, cleaning, laundry (never caught up) and cooking dinner (frozen pizza has become a staple as there are no take out places in Minersville.)

KAYLEE AND JOSHUA spent most of the year still in St. George while  Joshua continued to work at the ICU and take online grad school classes, and KayLee  juggled 5 kids under the age of 4 and worked as a therapist a couple of days a week.  We loved it when they came to visit and they never left without us doing a fire in the back yard and roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.  I'm still finding hidden packages of chocolate bars from all the s'more making.  We were sad when they moved to Queen Creek, AZ in November.  We will miss having them so close but Joshua needs to be there to finish Grad School.

BEN and MICHELLE spent the first part of the year apart, Michelle finishing her degree at BYU and Ben working for Boeing in Mesa.  They were happy to be back together in May and I was happy to think I'd have two kids to visit in Arizona when we could make the trip but Ben got a new job at Boeing and to do it needs to be in Washington State.  So they will be moving there at the end of the year.

DARIN and AMY are still living in Salt Lake.  Darin started the year in Grad School at the University of Utah but decided that teaching at a University wasn't really what he wanted so after a couple of months of job searching, he now works at ADOBE in Lehi. Amy graduated from BYU in April and worked for a furniture builder for part of the year but now she writes freelance for a woodworking magazine and she does woodworking commissions.  And Micah is adorable.  He loves counting and counts everything from how many cars he is playing with to how many drinks of his water is takes. We love when they come to visit.

MELISSA and NOLAN are living in Kansas.  Melissa spent the year working and finishing her degree online.  She graduated in August. Nolan finished his Pharmacy Residency in Salina Kansas and now is working as a pharmacist in the Kansas City area.  We don't get to see them as often as we'd like to but Melissa planned a great family reunion for us this October and we loved seeing them then.

DEEANN spent the first part of the year living in Provo (with Michelle when Ben was in AZ) and finishing her associates degree and UVU.  Then she decided Provo was not for her and she moved closer to us (YAY) and is pursuing a degree in Vocal Performance at SUU (her parents alma mater) DeeAnn also cuts hair at Great Clips.

ADAM is living in Cleveland Ohio working as a chef and saving money so that he can start school there.  We miss him being so far away but he fell in love with the East when we lived back there and so that's where he wants to  live!

EMMALEE is still our artist.  She gets better and better every day.  She switched high schools and this year is going to Beaver High (Yes, if someone in my high school days would have told me I'd have a child going to our biggest rival High School I wouldn't have believed them.)  She is making friends and loves that she can take art classes and digital media classes there.

NATHAN is in the 5th grade and is a budding YouTuber.  He loves making YouTube videos and would love some more subscribers to his channels...yes he has multiple.  Here is the link to one of them. He also finished cub scouts earning his Arrow of Light.

And a whole slew of pets:  We still have Max our sometimes great,  sometimes annoying Maltese, Jupiter our new cat because Phil, the cat we loved, was hit by a car in the middle of the night last May. Jamie has her planted fish tank finally up and running with a lot of fish.  And we inherited some guinea pigs from KayLee and her kids when they moved.  We had 6 but one passed on and we gave two away so we are down to 3, Chewy, the dad, The United States  of America (yes that's the name given to it by Linus) the Mom and Rosie/Disel (depending on if it's a girl or a boy) the new baby born the first part of Dec.  And we can't forget Squirt, Nathan's Turtle.  How that thing is still alive I will  never know.