Merry Christmas!
This is our Christmas card this year.
Someone asked us when they opened up our card, Is Keagan going to have a goofy face.. like usual? He does have other cute faces.. I guess it is me that loves his goofy faces. It is hard to narrow down our pictures of the year for one card.
And here is our Christmas letter below.
December 2013
The novel, “A Tale of Two Cities”
opens with the line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
This is how I have felt about this past year.
This year has probably been one of the hardest years we have had. Ray was unemployed most of it. BUT I do NOT want to complain! I want to tell
you that it was hard, but we have been blessed so much! I can’t even tell you
all of the blessings we have had this year!
Ray got a temporary state job in
late August at Labor and Industries.
Happily, it turned into permanent in November. We are so excited for benefits!!
Ray had to have surgery on his eye
last week. We are grateful for
insurance! He had a detached retina. He
had the same thing when he was 18. The
doctor said they don’t know what causes it.
Some people just have that happen. His vision started getting blurry in
his left eye. His vision was down to 20/400 in that eye... practically
blind. It should be to 20/100 when it is
all healed. Yah for sick leave! He had
over 500 hours of sick leave when he left the state a couple of years ago. Luckily the sick leave will carry over if you
get a state job within 5 years.
In March we got to go to Eastern WA
to watch Melissa & her dance team perform at state. They did a great job
& it was so exciting to watch. Sadly, Melissa decided that dance team
wasn’t for her this year. It was a hard
decision, we all loved watching her perform & she loved it, too. It just took too much time. She got a job (two for a while). She worked
at an ice cream shop and a state job she got thru her school. She is still working for the state.
It is hard to believe that this is
her Senior year in high school! We are
enjoying everything we can with her! She is such a fun girl (woman) to be
around! This has been a hard year for her because most of her friends were
Seniors last year. She has so many friends
that are on missions for our church and lots have gone off to college. She is hoping to go to BYU-I next year.
Keagan is in 8th grade
this year. He played soccer again this year.
It is fun watching him play. He
wants to play basketball again in January. He got glasses this year. I was
asking him why he wasn’t reading very much this summer. He told me because he
couldn’t see very well. Really?! Geez,
parent of the year... He has problems with his eyes tracking. He has to go to eye therapy every week for
3-6 months. No wonder he had problems reading! Sometimes he couldn’t even focus
on the letters! He is growing up so much and getting taller all the time. He turned 14 this summer and is now going to
church dances. He loves them! J
I am still teaching preschool with
my friend Marie. We have 10 kids in one morning class. As always it is a lot of fun. I am also watching a little girl after school
and most days, my niece, Aurora too. We joke around that we have the perfect
all American family of 2.5 kids because we have Aurora part time. We love
having her! She is part of our family!
Next year will be big changes for
our family. Everyone goes to a new
school! Aurora to middle school, Keagan to High school, and Melissa off to
College. I try to not think about it too
much, it makes me a little sad. It is
hard for me to believe that we are old enough to be in this stage of life!
This spring we also got to go visit
Ray’s Aunt Darlene in Salt Lake City while she was serving her church mission
there. What a great experience! We also
got to go to our first General Conference. (Our church has semi-annual meetings
in Salt Lake where all the church membership gathers together and listens to
our prophet & other church leaders.)
We also got to go to several weddings
this year. My little brother, Adam got
married. We love his new family, his
wife Heather and her 3 children. New cousins! Yah!
The pictures on our Christmas card;
Keagan being goofy as always at Adam’s wedding, Ray & I at Melissa’s state
dance competition, One of Melissa’s Senior pics, and Keagan & Melissa in
Utah. There is a cute little story
behind this one... They were giving me goofy faces, not cooperating to smile
for me. I told them, ok that is going to
be the Christmas card picture. That is
their reaction when I said that. J
We are so
blessed! We have such wonderful family and friends who love and support each
other. I try to look for ways that we are blessed every day. It is amazing to
find so many little things to be thankful for when you look!
We wish you
a very Merry Christmas and hope we all can remember the true meaning of this
Holiday season!
Love, Ray, Donna,
Melissa, & Keagan
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