The end of the year

I thought I would post a copy of our Christmas letter from this year. This is not an exact duplicate, it has a few updates and changes but it still gives you the general gist of our 2009.

Hello everyone,
We have had a blessed year. We are thankful to all of our friends and family. We are continuing to grow as a family and our friendships are continuing to grow and grow stronger also.

We celebrated Januarie's birthday and Al and I took some Disaster training - hoping we would never need to use it - during the month of January. We were trained by the Southern Baptists to be able to be on a team to help in immediate disaster response. It was a very informative course and we are glad that there are people willing to help others.

During February we celebrated Al's birthday and Luke's second piano recital. We bought a Chevrolet Impala for Kelley, she really racks up the miles on her vehicles. March brought us Lydia's 4th birthday and the birth of our fifth granddaughter Karstyn Elise. Karstyn means anoited by God and Elise is french for Elizabeth. She was born on March 11 and came into this world a happy camper and hasn't changed! Hope loves her and calls her "sweet". That is Hope's name for Karstyn "Sweet." Luke wants to know how many girls he is going to be related to and Lydia, Abigail, and Julia love having another female in the mix!!

Al and I made another trip to South Florida during the month of March and had a great time. We visited Silver Springs Park in Ocala. I haven't been there since I was in 7th grade and Al had never been there. We highly reccommend it. It was very nice, beautiful, and relaxing. Of course we had to go back to South Beach. We love it there! Al wakeboarded in Orlando, he did a good job!

In April Kelley and Januarie attended a Beth Moore Conference in New Orleans and were truly blessed there. In May, Al took Chaplain training (it sounds like a learning year), we went to Luke and Lydia's school parent night, and attended Hope's Gymnastic recital! The Parent night had an international theme and was very well done. Hope was the youngest student at her Gym and her picture was in the local newspaper.

In June we celebrate the birth of Alanna, Julia, and Matt! Al and I also went to Mississippi college for a Missionfuge camp with the youth from our church. It was wonderful!

In July Kelley's sister Russanne rents a condominium at Dauphin Island Alabama. We went down and spent some time with her and her family. Alanna and Hope and Karstyn came too! It was great, we played in the sand, rode jetskis, ate smores, played games, talked, mourned the passing of Michael Jackeson, etc. We had fun family time! July 25 is Luke's birthday and we brought him to Louisiana the week before his birthday and his family stayed here the week after so we were able to have fun famiy time with them also. Isn't God awesome. He has a perfect plan and His plans work!!!

We were blessed to celebrate our 32nd anniversary in August of this year. We officially say old people things now like "it seems like only yesterday," or "I remember when...," we are loving every moment of it and thanking God daily for each other and all of our blessings. We went to the place where we were married and spent a few days in the French Quarter. Russanne also became a grandmother for the first time to a beautiful granddaughter Caroline Elizabeth!

In September Kelley had surgery to help her various health problems. The recovery has been great and she is feeling much better. Peter turned the big 30. We both made a few trips to Memphis with Russanne for Kelley's ear problems and found out that Russanne shares the same illness that Kelley has.

In October we celbrated Hope's second birthday here in Louisiana at the Jumparoo! Her cousins were able to come and she was a beautiful young lady at her party. We also were blessed to be able to babysit for Januarie and Peter as they celbrated their 10th Anniversary by going on a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands. It was a fun time for us. It took us about 2 weeks to recover!!

November is already here and we are planning our holidays, celbrating Abigails 3rd birthday, and planning our next trip to Disney World (in January). Januarie, Alanna, Russanne and I are going on a Disney Cruise in mid January and Al and I are going to Disney World with the Morrisons at the end of the month.

Al and I went to New Orleans the 23 and 24 of December and toured all of the local hotels to see their Christmas decorations. You can see pictures on facebook if you are interested.

Al added a party room and an additional closet for me during the year and in 2010 we hooe to replace all of our windows.

God has truly blessed us and we thank God for each of thewse blessings and our friends and families. We pray that everyone has an awesome 2010.

My weight is down to 163 and that is after the holidays so I am thrilled!