The Christmas Letter of the Decade

Year after year Tiff would try to pull together a card/letter for the family.  Year after year, Jake would think it’s dumb.  She’d swear she’d do it early and make it a Thanksgiving thing before it gets crazy, well, maybe a Christmas. New Years card sounds good. Maybe we should just do a Valentine’s card and totally remove it from the season’s craziness.  Then year after year would pass.  This is the year!  It’s only out because of months of planning.  It might be another decade before you see another one.

We are currently in Ohio at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, home of the Air Force Museum, and the Wright Brothers.  We hoped to explore a lot while here but it has been difficult with Jake’s busy school schedule. He is working toward his Masters in Space Systems Engineering. He enjoys the group of people he goes to classes with but we’ve not had much time to spend time with friends and socialize.  He has pulled many all-nighters and works long, long days on his studies and research.  When he does get a chance to come home he barely gets a breath before the whole family is fighting for his attention. He looks forward to being done in March and moving to Virginia to learn a new job, buy and work on a house of our own, and get back to motorcycle riding, hiking, and fixing up his ‘72 Chevy truck.

Tiffany may not be going to school, but has been just as busy with all other things the family needs.  She has not loved the lack of sunshine in Ohio, but the fall colors help to make up for it.  She has been lucky to have some friends here that she knew in California, and has made new friends through church. With all her time without Jake she has watched a little too many series on Netflix, practiced her hand sewing skills, and tried to focus on learning.  She took up crossfit with Jake’s help and loved it more than she thought she would.  Our schedule has been hard to maintain our progress though. The bulk of her time this year has been spent on our new adventure of homeschooling.  She has enjoyed being with the kids (although it can be crazy and exhausting) and finds it fun to learn right alongside them.

JJ has decided to go by Jake since moving here, making it very difficult on Tiffany to make the switch. He attended a STEM school (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) last year and we all really enjoyed it. He was able to go on a week long camping trip with the school and made many friends quickly, as he always does. He has been involved in Scouting, baseball, football, TaeKwonDo, lawn-mowing, and Civil Air Patrol this past year.  He also has had a chance to pursue acting a little more (one of his career choices) and was cast as Edgar the Butler in The Aristocats by a group here in Dayton. He continues to succeed, make friends, and do well in anything he sets his mind to.

Luke is growing so fast and is shooting up taller every minute.  He played baseball this year, took up TaeKwonDo, hip hop classes, minecraft school, cub scouts, and acting as well.  He is one of the aristocats in the play with JJ and also will be in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a play based after the popular book. He continues to love all things STEM and has built a mini robot, builds many inventions, and plans to change the world with all his ideas.  This year he was baptized as a member of the LDS church.  He is always very busy and has been able to learn a lot about art, crafting, and sewing since being homeschooled. He is quick to make friends but even quicker to make girl’s fall in love with him.  We find love notes from ladies all the time in his room.  Luckily, for now, he’s still oblivious to what is going on.

Charlie continues to be our charmer of the family and Mr. Independent.  He finally turned 5 after an entire year of asking everyday when his birthday was.  He cannot wait to go to school (and has been waiting with anticipation for a year +) but because of his birthday, he has to continue to wait.  He begged to audition alongside his brothers for theatre but was always too young.  That didn’t stop him from saying his prepared monologue to the front desk lady and then promptly inviting her to his birthday party that was a couple months away.  He has also invited all our neighbors and the dollar store cashier, making sure she knew exactly what presents he wanted from there. He speak with a bit of a Jersey accent for some reason, and looks like he’s not our child because of his blonde locks, but most people who know us say that he obviously spends a lot of time with Tiff because he sounds just like her. He was able to finally play baseball (been waiting for years to be old enough to play like his brothers), and took up TaeKwonDo as well (a year earlier than they typically allow). He’s 5 going on 20 and no one will be able to tell him no. 

Mitt is lovingly called our Hulk. He has got the worst temper of all of our kids. He did not talk for a long time and has been going to Speech Therapy for a few months with much improvement.  It’s not so much that he can’t talk, we’ve learned with each session that it is more that he won’t talk.  He is stubborn as a mule and if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t. When he is pleasant, which is most of the time, he has a very infectious smile and giggle.  The long curly blonde locks again make people question where he came from.  He enjoys going to the nursery class at church and helping Tiff around the house with chores. He’s as much of a terror as he is a helper but he’s serious about his work.  Tiff calls him her grouchy old man. He has a very serious face most of the time.  He loves taking care of our two dogs, Bax and Bubba, and sneaks them food whenever he gets a chance.

We have been in Ohio for a year now, and still aren’t huge fans, but we agree that if we had more time to explore and spend time as a family, it would be a great place.  Our experiences here have been fun though. Tiffany’s brother and his family live here, just a few minutes away and that has been such a blessing and a treat to us all.  We have good friends from military, from both here and previous bases, church friends, friends from extra curriculars, and homeschooling.   We are grateful for the lives that we have and the many blessings and experiences we have had through the years. We miss family and friends terribly but are so glad that it is easier to stay in touch with people with social networking. As another year comes to a close, 13 years of marriage, 4 kids, many moves, many cars, a few degrees, the hardest thing to count is all the friends and people we have met, lived by, spent time with, and love.  You are one of them. We think of you often, are grateful for the sacrifices you made for our family, recall the times we spent with you, and wish that we could take/make the time to have more.  We hope the new year brings you peace, fun experiences, and a renewed mindset to get out and change the world one choice at a time.