December 2013
Seasons Greetings! I hope that our letter finds you well this year and that you are enjoying the magic of the season!
Good news to share all around with us. Each of us has experienced some big firsts this year and a few fun changes. The kids continue to do well and we are all looking forward to our holiday break from school and a much-needed family vacation, which is a first since buying the cabin!
Lindsay is in her junior year at Ballard High School. When they say that the junior year is the hardest, that is indeed true. She is taking AP (advanced placement) and honors courses, which are challenging but good. She has amazing teachers and she is doing a great job keeping her grades up. In 2013 she had her first boyfriend, did her first college tour and as of today got her first drivers license! Lindsay is president of SLAM (students lives always matter) Club at school and is also the communications director for the ASB. She organized the homecoming assembly for the school this year and hit it out of the park! I was able to attend the assembly and it was awesome. She participated on the BHS Swim team and is playing Unified Basketball and Unified Soccer. Unified sports are a program at Ballard that has teams of kids with emotional and physical disabilities partnered with kids who do not in conjunction with the Special Olympics. She LOVES playing unified sports and is having a ball
Jackson is growing like crazy. Since this summer his shoe size has grown 2 ½ sizes! He is still so lovely and we really enjoy his dry sense of humor. He started a new school this year and is going to Hamilton International Middle School for the first time as a 6th grader. He played La Cross last spring for the first time and has decided to let baseball go. He also went to beach camp for the first time this summer where he learned to “drop down” on a skateboard ramp and do flips of a trapeze that sent him hurtling into the frigid Puget Sound Water! He takes the city bus now to school all by himself for the first time and he has even done a little babysitting! Jackson is still playing soccer. His team the Knocknoodles are currently undefeated in the semi playoffs. He is very excited about snowboarding this year and is signed up to take the ski bus from his middle school in January (also a first!).
Scott continues to do very well professionally. He left Optify 9 months ago (just in time as they closed shop in Sept.!) and went to work for Hacker Group. It is the first time that Scott is working for an agency and he is really enjoying the creative energy of that environment. He works with some very smart, amazing individuals and he loves the challenge and the big changes. For the first time he is sending Jackson to boy scouts without dad as boy scouts is totally boy driven. Kind of sad but cool too. He had to drive with his daughter for the first time and is glad to have survived it. He built a beautiful “napping house” in our garden this summer for the first time and it turned out perfect! We celebrated our 20th-wedding anniversary in July and are very proud and happy about that.
I am working for the first time in a very long time. My business is still small but I have plenty to do and I’m enjoying making money again. For the first time I feel inspired to grow my business this year to add more of an event planning aspect as I seem to keep getting calls for that. I picked up another wedding for this summer, which I’m very excited about. I booked two Christmas parties this year (one up from last year!) and I like it! For the first time I actually think I can buy myself the couch of my dreams. Yes, I dream about couches and other home furnishings. For the first time in a very long time I got back up on a horse! Having been a horse girl as a youngster I have really missed that part of myself. I went to Bull hill Ranch this year with a girl friend for a week and rode horses and wrangled cattle and it was FABULOUS! I can’t wait to go back.
For the first time in 15 years we will not be spending New Years in Mazama. Instead, we are leaving on December 26th for a ski trip to Lake Tahoe. It will be Scott’s first time there and the first time the kids and he will ski there. This is where I learned to ski and where I used to visit my dad as a kid. We are all so excited to get in that van of ours and take it on the road! My Uncle Ron and Aunt Jill are meeting us there with my cousin Claire.
I hope 2014 brings you many firsts and that you enjoy yourselves and your loved ones.
Merry Christmas,
Michelle, Scott, Lindsay, Jackson, Lucy (lab), Cooper (Havanese)