Merry Christmas 2010

December 2010

Dear Family, Friends, Neighbors, Acquaintances, Colleagues, and Casual Observers who picked up this letter—

We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. Since you are now officially on our holiday mailing list and there doesn’t appear to be any way to opt out or remove yourself from this list, you now have the (mis)fortune of receiving one of these letters each year for approximately the next 67 years. (I’m planning on writing until I’m 100, but then reserve the right to take a year or two off). In an effort to streamline this process and make it easier for all involved, next year I’m just going to create the perfect fill-in-the-blank letter and then each year a simple “find and replace” in Microsoft Word will solve all of my problems. 

After several years as a road warrior with the management consulting firm, Accenture, working on growth strategy and innovation projects, this year I accepted a new position in Market and Competitive Intelligence in Charlotte with Bank of America. We’re excited about the new opportunity even though it entails a move from Indiana to North Carolina. I think the kids are most excited though about the fact that I’ll now be home for bedtime and ball games (instead of just dialing in or trying to connect via webcam). Megan also noted the lifestyle change when she remarked, “We have to increase our food budget since now you actually eat here.”

Speaking of Megan, she spent nine months of the year with a ‘serious’ medical condition called being-pregnant-with-the-fourth-while-still-trying-to-raise-the-other-three. While this condition was happily resolved when we welcomed our beautiful Avery into the family, doctors observed that it has spawned a new condition: lack-of-time-to-spend-papercrafting-with-Stampin’ Up-itis. Fortunately, she’s doing all she can with card parties and crafting get-togethers to address this second issue.

Alison has evolved into a full-blown basketball aficionado. She cleverly repurposed book fair money we sent with her to school to acquire Kobe Bryant and LeBron James posters “so that my room explains me.” She has already attended a couple of Pacers games this year and is playing in the 3rd/4th grade girls basketball league. She has also acquired close to 1,000 basketball cards and is now familiar with basketball legends dating back to Wilt Chamberlain and has become quite proficient at trading them. She also enjoys taking on the third grade boys in her class at basketball during recess.

Kaitlyn, our self-described “fashionista,” is loving kindergarten and riding the bus to school with her older sister. Almost daily she informs me that, “I’m a great person and I have a great personality” or that she’s wearing a certain outfit so that she can be a “diva.” My iPhone is now bogged down with half a dozen Barbie dress-up apps which she tries to play daily. When she’s exhausted her phone time for the day, she loves dancing around the house performing Taylor Swift songs for an imaginary audience of thousands. Not only does Kaitlyn have a “great personality”, but she is also an outstanding reader. All she wants for Christmas is for Taylor Swift to come visit her personally. (Anyone have any connections?)

Max has taught us how boys are innately different than girls—he cries much less and punches, tackles, and wrestles significantly more. One of his new favorite pastimes is studying different types of trucks. He is able to successfully identify excavators, backhoes, cranes, mixers, loaders, and tractors. Additionally, he is developing quite an extensive Matchbox car collection thanks to his older sisters’ lack of knowledge on what else boys like. He is a great big brother to his new little sister and tries to “save” her all the time (even though we’re still not quite sure what that exactly means).

As mentioned above, Avery (but we call her Ava for short), was born and is doing wonderfully. She’s been a joy for all of us and has an infectious and enthusiastic smile which she is just starting to show off. We feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family as you. We wish you a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2011.

Merry Christmas 2009

December 2009

Dear Family and Friends—

We are always grateful for the spirit of this season when people tend to turn their attention to the things that matter most—family, faith and friends. We also appreciate the opportunity to reflect back on our year, and wanted to catch you up on what we’ve been up to.

Since I’m getting old and can’t really remember what happened this year, I turned to our blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com to refresh my memory:

It looks like I’ve been a management consultant with Accenture for a year and half. In other words, I’ve accumulated 64 nights at Starwood Hotels, 58 nights at Marriott properties and Gold status on Star Alliance flights this year. I’ve spent most of this year doing growth strategy and innovation projects for health plans, health associations, pharmaceutical companies and management consulting companies in the Midwest and on the East coast.

It turns out that Megan took up gardening this year, with two bed-sized plots installed in our backyard producing delicious homegrown vegetables in just 2 – 3 short months. Her other pastime was showing me the rooms she painted while I was gone on business trips. She continues to enjoy living near her family, as well as by a good group of her Stampin’ Up friends and customers. We also celebrated our 8th anniversary by going on a cruise to Mexico (without the children!). 

It seems that Alison is greatly enjoying life as a second-grader. She takes great pride in getting her spelling and math homework right and is always anxious to teach us the things she’s learning about. As our little sports enthusiast, Ali learned how to ride her bike on two wheels, joined a softball league during the summer, and played “knock out” with her aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving during our trip to Tucson. She continues to take piano lessons and enjoys practicing first thing in the morning so that we all wake up to her melodies.

It’s apparent that Kaitlyn (our “girly-girl”) is an aspiring fashion designer who is able to turn shirts into skirts, pants into jackets, and shorts back into shorts. Her second year of pre-school (upgraded to the three days-a-week plan) has really been great for her and for Megan. She’s reading like a little champ and sounding out long words with confidence. She loved visiting Utah for my sister’s wedding, and especially enjoyed the pretty “princess” gown.

There never seems to be a dull moment when Max is around. He’s just a happy-go-lucky kid who loves to explore (read: “get into things”) and experiment (read: “I wonder what will happen when I turn this opened package of rice upside down on the kitchen floor?”). He’s speaking in little sentences even understood by people outside of the family! And, he just enjoys staying home, playing and wrestling with his family.

At the end of 2009, one thing is clear: we feel privileged and blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010.

Merry Christmas 2007

18 December 2007

Dear Family and Friends—

We are always grateful for this season of the year. Not only does it provide a time to reflect on the birth, life, mission and resurrection of the Savior, but it also gives us a chance to reflect back on the year and the things that we’ve been able to accomplish.

Megan spent the majority of 2007 in preparations for the arrival of our newest addition to the family—Maxwell—who was born on his birthday. Max has been such a joy to have in our home, and is a very relaxed boy who is not bothered in the least by loud sounds. I think all those months of hearing his vocal older sisters from the womb got him used to the idea of noise.

Kaitlyn will be getting old later this month, and has enjoyed starting “school.” Each Wednesday morning, Megan and three other moms in our area rotate teaching a little joy school class for two hours, which Kaitlyn absolutely loves. She is our “girly girl” who changes outfits at least three times per day, loves to wear skirts and dresses, and has developed a deep infatuation with Polly Pockets toys.

Alison began full-day kindergarten in the fall and rides the bus both to and from school each day. She has matured tremendously and has developed an independence and self-awareness which is quite remarkable. She is also becoming a proficient and motivated reader. Each day she brings home a new book from the school library to read at night and then returns it first thing the next morning; the librarian says Ali could run the place.

Besides giving birth to Max, Megan’s highlight of the year was our summer stint in Charlotte, North Carolina where I had an internship with Bank of America. She enjoyed taking the girls to the pool nearly every day, meeting other young working families, actually having time in the evening to spend with her husband, and of course, scrapbooking and stamping.

I am enjoying the additional scheduling flexibility that comes with being a second year business school student at Darden, and am relieved that we have now landed a full-time strategy job starting next year after graduation. In my spare time I still love playing guitar. 

  In order to keep others informed of the happenings in our lives we have started a blog at nathanandmegan.blogspot.com, which you can check if you want a family update before next December.

We feel privileged and lucky to have friends and family like you and wish you a very Merry Christmas and wonderful 2008.

Merry Christmas 2003

If I were on track--posting 1 blog entry per week towards my goal of 52 for the year--then as of this week I would have 36 entries.  I have 13.  So, I'm woefully behind and desperate for content.  Desperate.  Content.

I thought, it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane and re-visit our family Christmas letters (at least the ones I could find), since those should be posted for our posterity and your entertainment.

So, without further ado, here's the earliest one I could find: 2003.

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Dear Family and Friends:

2003 has been a wonderful year. It has now been 1 full year that we have lived in Provo. We feel so at home in our new house, neighborhood, and ward.

Speaking of the ward, Nathan is currently serving as Scoutmaster and 2nd Counselor in the Young Men’s Presidency. He has also enjoyed working remotely for IBM—especially the “commute.” It’s nice for him to be able to have lunch with Megan, and take 5-minute breaks to play with Alison in order to remember why he works so hard.

Speaking of working hard, Megan is learning how to juggle family, school, and church responsibilities simultaneously. The exciting thing is that she has only 1 year left before graduating from BYU in Marriage, Family, and Human Development. Megan is also doing her fair share in scouting working with the Cub Scouts, as the 2nd Counselor in the Primary Presidency.

Speaking of Primary, Ali isn’t in it. However, we are sure glad she attends Nursery. It’s amazing how much of a difference 1 year makes: at this time last year Alison couldn’t walk, say words, or eat normal food. Now Ali runs around, has a vocabulary that grows daily, and drags us to the pantry to pick out her favorite snacks. Also, she has somehow gotten cuter over the past year—if that’s even possible! During this Christmas season she has loved learning more about baby Jesus.

Speaking of Christmas, it’s nice to celebrate this season and remember what matters most. We are thankful for the life, perfect example and Resurrection of Him whose birth we celebrate. Merry Christmas!

It's The Climb

So, looking through the pictures on my phone to try to find something else to blog about so that I can narrow the gap between the number of posts I'm supposed to have at this point in the year, and the number of posts that I actually have--I discovered that Megan's sister's family came to town for some reason at the end of March.

I don't know.  I had to work, so I'm guessing it had to do with Spring Break or something.  Or perhaps it was that, being good, law-abiding citizens, they were simply leaving their native Indiana to follow the law stating that "baths may not be taken between the months of October and March."

Seriously though, we had a great time.  One of the activities that I was able to participate in was the visit to Inner Peaks.

Here Grant and Kaitlyn were able to climb to the top of the bouldering wall by using these protruding rock dealeos.

Max was successfully able to climb up to this point and then refuse all bribes, cajoling, and peer pressure to climb higher and touch the top of the wall.

 

Here Kaitlyn, Max, Grant and Garrison were able to show how they were not stuck.  Ali, Gabby, Jessica, and I were also around here somewhere doing something that probably saved someone's life and kept them from plummeting to their certain death.  Probably.

 

 

 

All in all, it was a great time and we were so happy that they came to visit!  Megan's parents were able to make the trip as well, so we had a great time being together.

 

(I think they did other things while they were here, but again...that pesky job.)

Signs, More Funny Signs

As you remember from 2011, I like funny signs. I'm always on the look out for funny, hilarious, comical, humorous, witty, jocular, hysterical, riotous, uproarious, and/or wacky or zany signs.  (But, those types only.)

 

My beloved family knows this.  For my birthday this year (only 2 months past--so I'm not that far behind), as they went to go acquire a delectable treat for us to consume in my honor, they saw the cookie cake below out on display for sale.

 

It didn't have any "sale" sign or "clearance" notification of any kind, so apparently they thought this was a perfectly legitimate, defect-free product.  It reads:

 

"Happy Birthday Day!"

 

 

Now, I'm no expert, but isn't that second "day" pretty much redundant, or superfluous?  Just sayin'.

 

Actually, I do need to go later to the ATM machine to enter my PIN number, and see if the LCD display will allow me to download in PDF format.

 

I bet what happened was that the baker had just come down with RAS syndrome and it hadn't passed yet.

 

Then, just 3 weeks ago, we went with the youth in our stake to visit the historical church sites in Palmyra (NY not Syria).  While we were visiting the location where the first editions of the Book of Mormon were published, we came across this little ditty on a first floor exit:

 

 

This sign was very effective.  In fact, probably one of the most I've ever seen as no one in any of the groups (over 220 kids!) tried to use that door, and further, there were no reports of lion attacks.

This sign also illustrates the importance of reading the footnotes--which is a good, secondary lesson.

 

(2016 Blog Post #12?  Check.)

Holding Down the Fort

 

So, last weekend Megan was out of town for her grandmother's funeral, and Ali and Kate were visiting my parents in Tucson.  That left me, alone, to take care of Max, Ava and Olivia.  (I was informed that it's not called "babysitting" if you're taking care of your own children.)

 

We weren't quite sure how we would survive without them for the weekend (and, in fact, some of us cried that night that we missed them!).  However, we did our best to be courageous and forge on.  If Ali and Kate were strong enough to fly across the country by themselves, surely we were strong enough to sleep in our own beds, in our own house, in our own state at night by ourselves.

 

With Dad in charge, that meant pizza, re-heated pizza, or cold day-old, leftover pizza for every meal until that was gone.  Then, we busted out the Mac and Cheese...er...vegetable platter with organically grown healthy, non-mutiny inciting comestibles. 

 

Food choices aside, we had a great time together.  Everyone piled on top of me and we watched a family movie together (Disney's "Brave").  We went to the park to play, played Just Dance, and did other such good-fathering things like helping write and gave a talk in Primary (before sacrament meeting even!), and pretend light saber fighting.  We even went to the pool together! 

 

(Almost equally as impressive, in my opinion, is that the kids were still bathed for church on Sunday and we didn't count the pool time as bathing!)

 

Here's some proof that the kids survived and were happy while we were together.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, we all rejoiced when mom got home and helped us get things back on track.

 

I learned that being the "mom" is about as a tough of a job as there is out there--and I only had 60% of the crew!

 

Don't ever leave again!