The pictures on the attached card chronicle much of
our year, which began with the death of our sweet dog, Libby. She lived a
long and loved life. A rescue dog with no documentation, we don’t have
any way of knowing her real age, but she spent her last 10 years with us and
was loved every minute. She is still greatly missed. Five-year-old Brownie, the
Maltese poodle mix, continues to entertain.
Tate is in the 10th grade and doing well. He
is on the school's swim team, sings in the school choir, works as a lifeguard
on the weekends, plays chess regularly, and is active at church. He and
Robbie attended the Byron Nelson Golf Championship in May and had the good
fortune to eat lunch with Byron’s delightful widow, Peggy Nelson. (Robbie’s
cellphone inadequacy made evident in the Christmas card photo.) Tate has made a
wonderful adjustment to Texas. We appreciate his resiliency, adventurous
spirit, and sense of humor.
After deciding that she is more of an East Coast
girl, McKenzie transferred colleges this year. She had a fun summer
traveling to Europe with Julie’s sister, working at like a small, locally and
family owned REI-type business and taking summer school classes. She volunteers
a few times a week at a local elementary school and was recently initiated into
a sorority. In late September, Robbie traveled to Parents’ Weekend and they
enjoyed attending the football game. We appreciate McKenzie's strong sense of
justice, her excellence in her schoolwork, and her continued love of all things
Disney (see her pictured this spring break with Tate and a statue of Walt at
Disneyland).
We took a spring break trip in March to Southern
California: Los Angeles, the Reagan and Nixon Presidential Libraries, and San
Diego, and a July vacation to Northern California - San Francisco and then 4
days in spectacular Santa Barbara. Anything to escape the crazy Texas heat!
For Robbie and Julie, life is much the same.
We were disappointed in the election results in November and are currently taking
a break from watching the news. We recommend the "news fast"
and have been surprised at the entertainment value of Law & Order and
Seinfeld reruns. It's funny that we can go a week without watching the
news but when we turn it back on, we haven't missed a thing (it's like missing
a month of The Guiding Light).
Though for us the physically demanding parts of
being a parent are coming to an end, what remain are the emotionally demanding
parts. We understand that this demand will exist for the rest of our
lives. Some days we long to change a diaper and put a child down for a nap,
comforted by the knowledge that everyone is safe and secure - knowledge seldom
achieved with teenagers.
So, as we end one year and begin another, our
prayer for our family and yours is this: that God may bless you in 2013,
that He will comfort those who are suffering and support and sustain those that
are providing comfort, that He will bless our country and its leaders and give
them the wisdom and courage to do the right thing, that He will safeguard those
that are serving our country to protect our freedoms and way of life, and that
we will have the insight to appreciate our blessings.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful
2013. We’d love to see you in the year ahead.
Love,
Julie & Robbie
