Christmas Eve 2007

Well it's Christmas time again and the painful stuff is over... you know, the lights, the decorations, the tree; all that stuff we really look forward to (ooh, ending a sentence with a preposition?).  Now the real holiday begins and the good stuff starts.  Celia arrived home from her first semester at BYU reporting success on all fronts except the dreaded Nutrition class.  Most importantly, she is having fun and that is something she never expected to say about school.  She likes her roommates; she confessed this through tears of joy while saying that she "loves them with every fiber of her being".  All in all, I think that the college experience has done her good.  Lisa was next to arrive home.  Pearl, her car, is healthy and is now paid for! That means that she can save something.  Only 7 more months and she will be through her paralegal training and can begin a new and hopefully more profitable chapter in her working life.  She still lives in San Diego and divides her time between work, church service, fun with friends and helping those hit recently by the wildfires in Southern California.  She and her roommates narrowly avoided evacuation themselves when the fire turned during the night.  Living near a temple probably helped in that.  Kiel made it home again on Friday.  He is about 1/3 of the way through the CHP academy in Sacramento and while enjoying it is maybe not the phrase to describe it, he is finding satisfaction in succeeding there.  The boot camp like environment demands a great deal of self discipline which is something always best learned young.  Alot of his fellow cadets appear not to have learned it though as Kiel and his compadres do many a pushup and squat thrust to pay for infractions committed by the less disciplined.  On the flip side we are often regaled by recitations of penal code sections and the occasional arrest demonstration.  Brittany... well Brittany has provided us much of the excitement this year.  After testing her stamina and recuperative powers against other cars and walls, she may have decided that parent's advice isn't so bad.  Of course our once healthy stable of fine automobiles has taken a hit but we are grateful beyond measure that she is still with us (and that she is paying her own insurance).  She still works as an assistant to Dr. Blatter and enjoys her work there.  She enjoys a healthy, if somewhat active, social life several nights a week.   Shelley, Steve, and Mariah arrived this morning at 3:30 AM after a long drive from their home in southern California.  Steve has been kept busy by all the fires in SoCal and Shelley has been trying to figure out what to do with herself and all her free time as a new mom... dishes play no part in that.  They have plenty to do in making a home in their new house and taking care of Mariah.  Mariah is just as cute as we've told everyone and has everyone in the palm of her hand, so to speak, wherever she goes.  We do miss having Brigitte and Tyler with us for Christmas this year but I guess we do have to share.  They are spending time this Christmas with Tyler's family while they wait out the last month for Logan's arrival.  They moved into their own apartment recently and are enjoying being in their own place.  I believe we are all greatly blessed and should be grateful for the good things in our lives.  We hope you all are having a wonderful holiday and that the new year holds great things in store for you!

Merry Christmas!