You came! Thanks for playing! Jim and I just wanted to have a more energetic and fun way to wish you the very best Christmas and a Happy New Year. We are hoping your year has been a good one. We have had both good and bad things this year but for the most part good, thank heavens! But it's better than 2007 when I think I skipped Christmas cards altogether!
Our life revolves around our family. We now have 10 grandkids and we wanted to share their photos with you. Yes it is true, we are among those 'crazy about their grandkids' type couples. This is our electronic brag book! But wait, it gets
This year we have wracked up a lot of miles both air and road. All of it has been to visit the kids and help out where we could. For three weeks in the spring we were blessed to be able to go to Italy (this link takes you to the last post on Italy by clicking older post after the entry you can go back as far as you want to see the photos, posts, etc.) Visiting with Laura and Robert and their boys Spencer, 9 and Ross, 6 was wonderful. We have missed them terribly since they moved from the Bay Area in August 2007. They will be there for three years total so we are hoping to get over there again before they leave in August 2010. Italy was amazing we had a wonderful time from the minute we arrived until we had to say good-bye.
We also spent a lot of time in Utah this year. (You can check that out by clicking on Utah on the sidebar of my Main Blog found on the right hand side of the blog page at the bottom in the section called Labels.) Isn't this fun, you get to pick and choose!
Jim and I love to travel. We look forward to a lot more of it when we are retired. If you are wondering when that will be, so am I. Jim loves his work so much that he may be there until they change the locks on the doors! He has been so blessed to love his profession so much over the years. He has to be ready before he can say goodbye to teaching, and I am fine with that, epecially with the economic climate these days. I just wish I knew what we will be doing and when~ as I like all my ducks in a row. Right now I feel like a high school junior wondering what I want to do when I grow up!
I have definitely had a struggling business this year with the real estate bursting bubble. But it is OK, we will hang on for awhile yet to see what happens with the economy. I have been blessed to have some redesign work from several people since staging is belly up right now.
In many way this downturn has been a blessing for me. My latest passion is writing and I actually have five different blogs. One is the daily life blog, then I have a decorating blog, and a personal one just for the family, and now this one! I have another on-going blog where our grandson, Spencer, and I are writing a story together. It is turning into a book, you may see it in Barnes and Noble one day! For those who do not know, a blog is an online journal and I have made nearly 575 posts when combining all the blogs this year. That is pretty decent sized book really. I have loved every minute of it.
I have found it to be a great way to communicate with the family and friends, to organize photos and just have a lot of fun. I love writing so much and it is something I just have to do every single day now. I have wanted to do it for many years but have never had the time to devote to it until now. I was also invited to do some writing for an online magazine called Blissfully Domestic. You can see a Sample Article I wrote here.
Jim has a blog too but it only contains a few posts. He is mostly a reader and loves to see what is new with all our family and blogging friends. We have both gotten into photography due to the digital cameras and blogging. If you blog let us know! We would love to read your ongoing news!
Jim continues to be an avid biker. He just loves it and it is so good for him. He is also very involved in Church, Scouts, and this year he even worked on a political campaign for a friend running for the school board. We both enjoyed that but it was a lot of work. He spends a lot of time with his mom and helps her around her house a lot.
His latest new love/toy is his Tom Tom GPS, he calls it Susan. He just got it for his birthday in November. Last night he had gone to bed and I was up writing and I heard this coming from our bedroom , "In 250 feet turn right." It cracked me up since I thought he was sleeping! I do not get jealous because I have a new man in my life as well.Jim loves working on anything and everything. His backside rarely meet up with the sofa or recliner but when it happens he enjoys watching adventures movies and eating a gigantic bowl of popcorn! He sits through his share of chick flicks with me too. That is our usual Friday night date. We turn off the phone and hang out at home. We are a real exciting pair! He also loves taking groups of people on tours around the bay area and has organized a few for after the first of the year. They are fun. He is still a big outdoors guy, and got into snow shoeing with our sons Chris and Lowell and he is looking forward to a snow camp out and building an igloo during our visit there in Utah during Christmas break.
That is pretty much it for the two of us. We celebrated 40 years of marriage in June and had a nice trip to Sausalito to enjoy that time together. We are just thankful to have our health and strength, God in our lives, and to be able to serve others and to be with our kids and grandkids. For more details about all we have been up to this year (is she kidding us?) you can go to my main blog <bonsblogbydesign.blogspot.com> As Jim says, you will find out far more than you ever wanted to know as I make entries everyday there.
I know in a typical Christmas letter an empty nest couple would not normally put in much about their grown up kids and grandkids, but in our family this is such an important part of what we do and who we are, that we just wanted to include a post on each family.
No comments:
Post a Comment