Merry Christmas 2013

Dear Family, Friends, and the rest of you, It is that joyous time of year when 2 wondrous yearly events collide in a relatively short amount of time. First, I am somehow, through the covenant of marriage, required to write this epic holiday letter of greeting and joy. Second, I am also required by my employer to write another wor of fiction that outlines what my goals were for the year and how spectacularly I accomplished them. !his document is required to maintain my employment and somehow convince them that I deserve a bonus, the value of which, after ta"es, is enough to buy a #ig $ac and dollar%menu fries. !his wor of masterful imagination contains such thrilling moments as& '!he computer applications I support had a collective availability rating in e"cess of ().*+, which is the corporate goal for availability,. $a es you feel tingly all over. So, as you can imagine, with fun stuff li e that going on, I love this time of year. -ow to give you an update on all of the family. .old on. !here is no family. /e have been de%famlied. !hey have all ta en up residence elsewhere and are now responsible for their own joyous holiday letter. So I will give you an update for myself and my adoring spouse. /e really miss having the ids around the house with all of the noise and activity. .owever, on the other side of that coin is something that cannot be under% emphasi0ed1 it is called 23453 4-D 67I3!. /e have become quite used to it. 4nd you now what8 /3 9I:3 I!. It is nice to sit and listen to ; -<!.I-=, but I am under contract to also say how much we miss the hustle and bustle of a busy household. 9i e so many of our peers we are living in that >/4?-I-=& 2olitically incorrect phrase ahead@ No-Mans-Land of middle age, where we simultaneously feel both too old and too young at the same time. /e are too old for some things >li e bungee jumping@ and too young for others >li e retirement@. #ut it is a comfortable time where we seldom have to endure the e"citement of Aunior .igh School choir concerts or teaching a B*.C* year old daughter how to drive a car. >!here really should be a bra e on the passenger side@. Desterday I celebrated my anniversary of EF years at the same company. 7nbelievable. !ime really flies when you are having fun and are also unconscious. $arilyn is an 4ide at the 3lementary School and plans to do one more year after this present school year and then hang up her spurs and let somebody else save the world and wipe noses. 4s for our church assignments, $arilyn is helping out with the girls in the D<7-= /<$3-S organi0ation who are B2%BF years old. !hey meet on Sunday and one other day during the wee . For the third year >but whoGs counting@ I am teaching the Sunday class of the ids who are BB and turning B2. For the most part, I enjoy that. For the lesser part, I want to beat them with a stic . /4?-I-=& $y middle age is showing.

For those of you that count on us to give you straight%shooting, honest, and uncompromising information about how our ids are doing, let me just say this& Dou are not going to get that here. .owever, I will sugarcoat it a bit and give you a summary. 5onsider it our version of one of those cheesy .allmar 5hristmas shows that seem to be mass produced faster than >/4?-I-=& ?eally seriously politically incorrect phrase ahead@ people in 5hina. Nellie, daughter HB, and our favorite, is wor ing as an 4dministrative 4ssistant at #D7. She loves the wor , and the environment, but letGs face it, wor is still wor , and you still have to get up and go to it everyday. She lives in a little house in Springville and is really happy to be past the phase of her life where she has roommates other than her dog 2enny. She grows a iller garden each summer and is serving in the Sta e ?elief Society 2residency >womenGs organi0ation@ in the church. Angie, daughter H2, and our favorite, lives in 9ayton 7tah with her husband Dan and Ruby >C@ and Nate >*@. 3arlier this year they had a sad and challenging event when their little girl Caroline was a still%birth. ?uby and -ate are now both in 3lementary school and this affords 4ngie the lu"ury of showering without ids illing each other or wrec ing the house while she does so. She is the 2resident of the childrenGs organi0ation in her church >called 2rimary@ and is shaping the young minds of the future. -ow you should remember that I shaped her young mind first. Scares you, doesnGt it. Alison, daughter HE, and our favorite, moved with her family to $esa 4ri0ona this past year. .er husband Travis is wor ing full time and is also going to school to get his $asters degree. !hey have 2 boys, Bode >*@, and Trey >2@, and also added a little girl >Claire@ on !han sgiving Day, a few wee s ago. /e went to help out when the baby was born and reali0ed why we only had girls1 boys are just too wild for us. !hey have a plaque in their house which accurately describes it as follows& #<D& 4 -<IS3 /I!. DI?! <- I!. Genevieve, daughter HF, and our favorite, moved with her husband Kevin, and E boys Braxton >F@, Jace >2@, and Timothy >) months@, to :aysville from the #oise area this year so :evin could be closer to his wor . !hey sold a beautiful home in a neighborhood we li ed to call 5.?IS!$4S !</-. 4ll of the neighbors had ama0ing 5hristmas displays. 4 video of one of the houses went viral on the internet last year. Imagine the stress and pressureI I would have moved too. Erin, daughter H*, and our favorite, had a very eventful year. .er husband Chadd graduated from #D7 and they loaded up their truc and moved to $ichigan to attend 9aw School. !hey also added to our grandchild count with the addition of Rosie in $arch. It is unlawful to move out of state and ta e grandchildren away from their grandparents. I hope they teach them that in law school. For those that were eeping stats that was F<7? daughters all pregnant and due to deliver in the same calendar year, which brought our grandchildren count to BJ. <nce again, 7-#39I3K4#93. $erry 5hristmas to all, and to all, blah blah, you now the rest.