Merry Christmas 2011

December 2011


Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances and People Who Casually Picked Up This Letter—

Looking back on our 2011, I couldn’t remember all of the noteworthy events that took place during the course of the year, so I turned to our trusty family blog at www.nathanandmegan.blogspot.com for ideas. Unfortunately, 2011 turned out to be the year with the lowest actual blog post production (only 15 vs. 23 posts last year), so clearly I’m going to have to find another source of ideas for this year’s recap since it’s apparent that the slow economy has reached even the blogosphere.

First off, we’ve officially moved to North Carolina. It only took 11 months and 37 showings, but we were finally able to sell our house in Indiana at a loss and relocate to Charlotte to be able to work onsite at Bank of America headquarters for the job I accepted last year.

Shortly after unpacking our things, Megan and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by using up all of the frequent flier miles and hotel points that I acquired from my consulting days and spent a week in Hawaii—which was the first time either of us had been. Megan’s parents were gracious enough to watch the kids, and they were fortunate that we decided to come back. However, while we were gone, Avery took advantage of the chance to make us feel bad by promptly learning to walk. We saw her first steps via video email only (but luckily those steps are now immortalized…until our hard drive crashes).

[2016 Update: Those first steps actually are lost forever as Max one day decided to pour water on our iPad to see if it would explode.]

Speaking of Ava, she turned older this year and is not only advanced with her walking skills, but she is also advanced with her teeth-growing skills. She had a full 8 teeth by the time she was 7 months old, and so she’s been eating “big kid” food at the table for quite some time now. Despite all this, she remains our petite little baby and loves being spoiled (and run-over) by her older siblings.

Max (turned older this year), does most of the running over. He started pre-school in the fall and absolutely loves it. He’s working on his reading skills. Although he hasn’t quite finished War and Peace yet, he does know most of his alphabet letters as well as some sight words like “the,” “and,” ,”of” and a few others that he’s been able to pick up during our nightly family scripture study. He looks quite scholarly in the glasses that he now wears after we discovered that his going cross-eyed was due to his inability to see rather than his sense of humor. In addition to all of his studies, Max is all boy and loves to run, wrestle, chase and break things.

Kaitlyn (turns older in a few weeks) has continued to work on her fashion skills. I think she got some good ideas when she went to her first concert (to see Taylor Swift) with Megan this year. Now that she is in first grade, she decided to try to get ahead and has been developing her PowerPoint skills in her spare time. So far she has created presentations on donuts, Halloween, Hawaii, her Uncle Michael and his new wife Heather’s wedding, grandparents, friends, and music. She has also been taking gymnastics and can no longer go from the family room to the kitchen without attempting cartwheels and round-offs.

Alison (turned older this year) is working on mastering her basketball skills. For her 9th birthday she invited 6 boys and 0 girls to play basketball at the neighborhood court and then returned to our home for basketball-themed treats and party favors. She joined a new basketball league in North Carolina and is practicing once with her team during the week, and once with another team during the week. She also just ran her very first 5K as a part of the Girls on the Run program. Ali also loves to read—even if it is an hour or two past her bedtime! She recently read 1,452 pages in a week in addition to her regular schoolwork.

Megan has finely perfected her scrapbooking and papercrafting skills, although being a mother of 4 rambunctious children and 1 determined husband doesn’t leave her with as much time to pursue her craft as she might like. Although she certainly misses her family, friends and Sunday School class in Indiana, she’s adjusted well and has quickly made new friends here.

I continue to be fine…except for that knee surgery in December that I needed after tearing my meniscus while playing church basketball in May.

We love you all and are grateful for this time of year when we can reflect on the fun things we’ve done this year as well as the things that really matter most—our family, our friends, and our faith in Jesus Christ. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy 2012.