A Merry Christmas to All……

and this is already our SECOND Christmas….we love so much about it, we love that after 23 years of apartment living we actually have a house of our own…..it’s warm and cozy and beautiful…..when I walk thru the door at night it just hugs me….and no matter how long and hard my day has been, my house welcomes me, along with Luca who practically attacks me with JOY to see me after a long day at work…..so this aspect of Ohio we love, our spacious yard… our hot tub…also very welcoming at the end of a long day….we have sweet neighbors…..I came home the other day and they had shoveled the snow off my walk….so sweet. We love living close to Bekah and Jon, we have our usual Sunday ritual of eating out after church and then crashing at one of our houses for the afternoon….I love my job at Dr. Sato’s office, although it is all consuming I still love it, and I love my nice spacious stamp room which I retreat to every chance I get, Keith is starting to enjoy his trucking job and has finally found a connection to his boss that makes the job more enjoyable….and so therefore the separations more bearable…At least he is getting home on weekends now consistently. We even got to spend Thanksgiving together – which was an unexpected bonus…..and we are praying he’ll be home for Christmas…. eventually after a year or so of working this trucking job…he can get something local and then be home on a daily basis…..but you need a year of experience for that….Let’s see – in a Christmas letter you give family news too…..Jen and Davis are getting ready to go to France for language study before spending time in the Congo….Tovah and Lami are growing fast – so adorable and we miss them so much,,,,,but we get to talk to them on a pretty regular basis on the phone and we send email regularly and we happily anticipate the next time they will be home which will be late next summer Lord willing…… Bethany and Brian are doing well in Minneapolis with Madyson and Chloe, they are trying to buy a house right now – we talk to them lots and miss them lots too…….Jon and Bekah are very busy in the church, and with their jobs….and we live about 10 minutes from them which is a blessing, ( and makes us anticipate more grandchildren) We do get to babysit for Moseley on a regular basis since Jon is the youth pastor and they spend lots of time with the youth so we take Moseley to keep Luca company….. and then Mike and Jenna are in NY with Layla girl and we talk to them lots on the phone and Mike has a very good union job in the city now….and Jenna has been babysitting for a little boy with autism and has found that challenging and she gets to take Layla with her….Layla is a chatterbox and so adorable – we get to chat with her a lot on the phone now and that is such a treat as well…..so that’s the family news….Of course we wish with all of our hearts that they all lived around the corner….but this is life, and we thank God for the chances we DO have to see them and we just pray for them and love them long distance when we can’t see them. This weekend we finished our Christmas shopping and I just got through wrapping it all, I actually I decided that instead of doing Christmas wrapping this year I would do Christmas dumping…..I went and bought a bunch of those bags and did it that way….much easier!! It is

so much fun to shop for FIVE grand daughters… and then so much fun to wrap it all…..I could shop for TEN grand daughters, girls are so much fun to buy for….so I lovingly “dumped” it all into bags tonite, haha, and Keith will go to the post office tomorrow and send it on it’s way with LOVE and hopefully next year some of us will be together for Christmas! Mike and Jenna want us to go to NY, but we don’t know if Keith will even be home and with Mike’s new job he has to work Christmas eve, and then it’s Jon and Bekah’s year to go to his parents, so we may have a quiet Christmas but that’s okay too….we have the memories of last year when we saw them all during the holidays and JOY knowing we will have other years when we are all together again……..last year we had the gramma’s here too…..it was awesome but this year they both decided to stay put too…..so we will all have a quiet Christmas, and give thanks to GOD for HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT……..and for friends like you and family and grand daughters, warm homes, good jobs, all the blessings that we have to be careful not to take for granted…..Thank you Lord, for all these blessings that we do not deserve. Thank you for sending your SON to die on a cross for me…..help me to remember that you are the reason we even celebrate Christmas, JOY TO THE WORLD~ the LORD HAS COME – LET EARTH RECEIVE HER KING~~~ Merry Christmas everyone!!