I've been thinking about the usual sorts of things that I write in these holiday letters, and it occurred to me that most of you a) read this blog fairly regularly and b) already know most of the things that I would normally put in a holiday blog post. It's typically a recap of the year for our family, but I could just as easily say "go read the 2009 Blogspot archives for the site". Mission accomplished!
But I suppose that would make for a decidedly short and uninteresting holiday recap, so I find myself forced to come up with things that we haven't already written about. So, in no particular order:
- I think we already covered it a bit, but the big vacation for the year was a hugantic (the boys like that word) family trip to Colorado back in June. We spent a long week in a couple of cabins up near Grand Lake, CO, with lots of hiking, fishing, and ice-cream-consuming. It was a great time, and it will be too long before we do that sort of thing again.
- Logan and Liam also took swimming lessons this summer, and did pretty well. They didn't have a chance to get out to the neighborhood pool all that much, since Jill was majorly pregnant in the summer and I was always at work. But, they did a good job with the basics.
- Logan advanced to Wolf Scout earlier in the year, and has still been enjoying Scouts. It remains mostly a Second Grader Social Hour, but there have been a few fun projects and community service days that kept things at least somewhat Scout-oriented. The holidays will find us preparing the Fire and Flames MkII for the 2010 Pinewood Derby, or as I like to call it, "Pinewood Derby 2: The Redemption". There will be payback, OH YES.
- Liam has made great strides in learning to read, thanks in large part to Green Eggs and Ham, the first book he was able to read nearly cover to cover. He still has trouble with bigger words, but he can do a passable job with Mercy Watson books, road signs, cereal boxes, video game text, and pretty much everything he can get his eyes on.
- Meyer has spent the last four months mostly porking up. And practicing for his future as Senior Chief of Drool Manufacturing. He is excellent. I predict a Vice President slot by the time he's three.
So that's about it, folks. Nothing really earth-shattering has happened, other than Meyer joining the family. Otherwise, it's been a fairly tame year. Life goes on. I'm still working at Boeing, finishing up my slot in Propulsion. I had hoped to stay on there permanently, but budget woes are preventing that, so I'm still working on just what I'll be doing next year. Haven't figured it out yet, but I should have a good idea by mid-January. Jill has given up her wedding coordinator gig at church to be able to spend more time with the kids and not give up so many Saturdays.
Hope to see many of you over the next couple of weeks. As always, keep in touch and best wishes to all.
- Jason
