Merry Christmas from Ohio! I pray this finds all of you doing well. For the first time in many years my Christmas cards are not ready. I've loved Shannon's blog and she told me I could do this too. I thought why not start with my Christmas letter?
We have had a wonderful 2008...quite emotional. James accepted the position here in Ohio last October. I know Gods timing is perfect and He chose to have us wait a year before selling & moving our family here. We made the move right before Thanksgiving. We had some tearful see you laters (not goodbyes) as we left St. Louis. We have truly been blessed to have so many wonderful people come into our lives over the 14 years we lived in STL.
The moving truck arrived here at our new home 7289 Rolling Meadows Drive, West Chester, OH 45069 on November 25th. They unloaded the semi and we then drove to Mt. Vernon the next day to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families.
We are settling into our new home. Our new neighbors have been an answer to my prayers. They have welcomed us with open arms. We have attended two Christmas parties here on our street the first 2 weeks we lived here. We have MANY 6th grade girls and ONE 8th grade boy on our street. Cameron had been praying for an 8th grade boy to move to his street. God answered Cameron's prayer and mine too. :) Aaron and Cameron have gym class together.
Aaron has pasted me in height and is growing very close to passing James too. We brought him over this summer to try out for soccer. He made the Cincinnati United Soccer Team and they held a position for him. He played his first Futsol game with them last night 12/19/08. He is really enjoying his wood shop class at school. He made my Christmas present...I can't wait to see it. He didn't waste any time in finding a girlfriend. James and I are feeling really old!
Ariel is shooting up in height on us too. She is still a tiny little thing, but getting taller. She is doing great in school. She is thinking about trying out for the musical at school. She was pretty bummed to find the new school did not have an orchestra program. She was in the advanced group back in STL. She is still debating on starting private lessons here.
Alexis is still our ball of fire. She is doing wonderful in school. She is ready to get on a soccer team too. Daddy is getting a kick out of her wanting to help him with all the home projects. She is not happy with just helping Daddy she wants to do it herself. She helped James put on new faceplates this week. We think she might be the future engineer of the family.
All three of our children stood up with us in September as we renewed our wedding vows. We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary at a little wedding chapel in Arkansas. The girls really enjoyed getting dressed up and being in the wedding. Aaron went along with the whole ordeal, but didn't enjoy it so much. ha ha
I am very blessed to have spent over half of my life with James. I tell him he is getting better looking each year. I really like the salt & pepper look he has going now. He tells me I'm the cause of the grey. James connected with a neighbor to start biking and another has invited him to join the running group. He will be hard to keep up with as 2009 gets going.
I am looking forward to finding a new ladies bible study group come January. I am really looking forward to catching up on my scrapbooking. I'll see how much I get done...it is a good goal for 2009.
Hope you've enjoyed our Ohio update!
Till next time,
Vonna
