Merry Christmas!!

I just want to recognize that this holiday season is about, for, and in reverence to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for His love and sacrifice for us and for God’s love for us. I spent the past week preparing a talk for sacrament meeting about God’s Love and crying tears of gratitude that I am getting quite dehydrated. I am glad that I am past the public delivery part, but I am so grateful and never want to get past the gratitude.

I know that very few people ever look at my blog (probably because I haven’t been good at keeping it updated and most people don’t know I even have one or much care to read my random ramblings) so I decided to write a Christmas Letter.

David and I are just glad to be alive. We both had surgery recently and have had a much harder time trying to recover than either one of us expected. It has changed our lives considerably and we both hope that the changes aren’t permanent. And yes, we still love each other very much, in spite of the fact that our “discussions” sometimes get very impassioned and loud. But I think that most of our family is used to that. We’ve been doing that for about forty years (last June we celebrated our 40^th Wedding Anniversary). David’s mother Eilene died last month. It is hard to see the passing of those we love, but she was ready to go and rejoin her husband Victor, whom she missed terribly. Funerals aren’t quite so sad when the person being honored had a life well lived. That was very true of Eilene.

Christian and Leslie are doing well. They sometimes bemoan the fact that when you’re capable and responsible, you don’t get a lot of sympathy or help. I’m sure that’s true, but I want them to know that they have a lot of appreciation and respect coming from us. Christian often feels that the “church work” is endlessly long. I told him once that I expected he would be dragged to the Celestial Kingdom kicking and screaming. Their girls are doing well. Britt is 15 now and a sophomore at Mesa High, excelling academically and an absolutely lovely person to be around. The same can be said about Annika (except for the sophomore and 15 part since she is in Junior High and 13). She loves performing and always has her nose in a book. Kaisa (age 10 and also lovely) is being homeschooled this year so she spends most of her time with Mom and Sofia. Sofia is 4 and a cutie. She constantly comes up with interesting observations and totally unique ways of expressing them. They are all wonderful and I could write volumes on each person – which time and space prohibit.

Greg and Jen are living in Florence, Arizona. And No, they aren’t in prison. There are things in Florence other than the state prison, and it has been growing so fast, they keep dividing the wards every other month (well, almost). Their ward was just divided and Jen now constitutes the whole remaining Primary Presidency. Greg has been working on his Master’s Degree and has had to give up sleeping in order to fit everything in. Danny and Hunter are getting bigger (and Hunter especially taller) and along with Jilly (2) keep their parents hopping. The girls (Kendall, Madison and Hana) live with their mom during the week and come to Florence on weekends. I often wish they lived closer, but I’m sure they are where they ought to be.

Cecily and Jason live in Gilbert (Only about 10 miles from Mesa) and just got back from a vacation to Disneyland. Cecily is pretty much “Superwoman” but cannot see how that could possibly be, because she has no actual “ super powers” and has to do things the old fashioned way of mere mortals. Arinda, Saylem, Treyjen, and Tressa are wonderful, unique and interesting people and lots of fun. Our whole family enjoys the extra effort Jason has made this past year to spend more time with us and we really enjoy his company.

Joel is still alive. His house caught fire on Easter morning, but no one was hurt. He now has a new house (the inside, at least) that he is enjoying much more than he did the old one. I hope that is not too much information for me to give out. I made a serious mistake several years ago in writing a Christmas letter (that I never sent) when I said some things I shouldn’t have about Joel . He never forgave me and still distrusts me to this day.

Anna and Nate are still living in Manhattan. Anna is living the dream, living and dancing in NEW YORK CITY (and wherever else they travel to). She is a member of the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and enjoys it very much. Nate is an excellent trumpet player and works a lot, but Anna doesn’t seem to know much about what he is doing. My best source of information about Nate is his dad. Steve Botts usually knows the details about his son’s career and is very willing to talk about him. Hmmm. I guess I should have called him before I wrote this. Then I would have something to write.

I love my family, but often miss the old days when all my children were under one roof. I really enjoy all the additions to our family since then and wouldn’t want to give them up. Wouldn’t it be great to have EVERYBODY living in my house? (I’m afraid we’d all go crazy!)

Christmas letters make me very nervous anymore. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing. I love you and hope you have had a good year and wish you the best in the coming year (Oh yeah, and David does too!).