The Year 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

This year has been another one filled with change. We all lived in San Antonio, Texas during the summer. Though we don't ever plan on moving there permanently, we enjoyed going to SeaWorld every week, visiting the Alamo, museums, parks, and daily swims in our pool.
Jeff worked one last summer for Vivint/APX and traveled from Oregon to Texas from April until the end of August. We were apart for 3 months, but took advantage of technology through video chatting, phone calls and texts. He recently started a new job at England Logistics as a capacity manager. A renewed love of music has brought him back to the piano and the family enjoys the nights he plays for us.

To keep in shape chasing the kids, Robin ran her 6th, 7th, and 8th marathons. She started tutoring an ESL college student from Argentina in the spring. She gets to help in Elijah's kindergarten class each week and substitutes as a crossing guard at the school. She recently began watching a friend's two year old 3 days a week, but finds a little time each week to write, her new-found love. Robin's youngest brother, Shae, came to live with us for nine months this year and was a big help when Jeff was gone. Still a child at heart, though he turned 20 while here, the kids had fun playing with their uncle.

Henry turned eight this year and was baptized in September. He started 3rd grade and likes to read chapter books. He is learning to play basketball and do multiplication and division. Games are his passion. He will play anything from Monopoly and Battleship to games on his DS, iPhone, or computer. He is a caretaker of his sister and is becoming very independent.
The clown of the family is our little Elijah. He is an imaginative five year old with questions and comments that always surprise us. He has learned all his letters in school and is reading beginner books. He is definitely not a quitter. After a bad bike accident in the spring, he was back on his bike in only a few days. His obsession with watching toy reviews and collecting Power Rangers makes us all laugh.

Trevor is our 3 year old puzzle-solver. He loves putting together anything from Transformers to Legos. While in Texas, we had to put him back together as he took a dive off a bed and broke his arm clean through. As long as he has some chocolate milk and something to build or color (or Mommy's iPhone), he will play quietly for hours. He loves learning in his preschool class and is a big helper at home.

She started the year off not even crawling, but now Charly can walk, run, and dance. Her first word was “thank you” and she has recently discovered many more words, most involving food (which she loves to feed to herself). Even though only 17 months old, she is obsessed with shoes and clothes already. We definitely have a girl on our hands!

Without amazing family and friends, we wouldn't have made it through this crazy year. Thank you for your love and support – we hope to find a way to help all of you in return. Merry Christmas!

Love,
Jeffrey, Robin, Henry (8), Elijah (5), Trevor (3), Charly (1)