The Christmas Letter

To All of Our Friends and Family...and Random People on the Internet,

We hope this letter finds you happy and healthy! We didn't get a holiday letter out last year, so I hope you'll be able to put the pieces together if you have missed something.

In February, we moved to Minneapolis, KS. My mom and step-dad built a new house, so we moved into their old one. It originally was owned by my step-dad's grandparents, so it is neat to have it still "in the family." Upon moving here, we quickly became involved in the community. We started attending the United Methodist Church and have been warmly welcomed. I am a member of the hand bell choir and sing a lot of solos during services. Joe has given a fire-safety presentation, and Nora tends to entertain everyone during the services. Besides being active in church, Joe is particularly busy with things in town. He volunteers for the fire department here, works some part-time hours for our EMS, and is a member of the special rescue team for the county. We really love our new little town! Joe's brother and his wife moved to Minneapolis only a month after we did and my step-grandparents are here in town, as well. It is nice to have people just down the street that you know and love--especially when you are new in town.

In case you didn't already know, Joe was hired onto Salina Fire Department in May 2007. After 5+ years of going through the rigors of testing and interviewing for departments around the state, he persevered and made it! It has been wonderful for us. He loves his job and the schedule is fantastic. He works 24 hours on duty and then has 48 hours off. He's taken a few classes to further his career already and will be certified as an arson investigator next September. He is also in the beginning stages of the driver mentoring program at the department. Once he completes that, he'll be eligible to test for a driver's position. The test is only available after so many years of service. I think it will be another 3 years before he would be able to test, but he's very happy with his position of firefighter. When he finds time away from the emergency services, he enjoys spending time working on our house. Things have been at a stand-still for a little while, but he has almost completely redone the bathroom. He also repainted the outside of the house. The house is a fixer-upper, so we'll almost always be busy with projects. His biggest pride and joy is our little girl, Nora. It is so sweet to see the two of them together. She is a big daddy's girl and he is madly in love with her.

If you can believe it, Nora is 2 years old! She is our little joy, that's for sure. She is always making us laugh and surprising us with what she knows. She has a lot of friends through church and is also friends with our neighbor kids. Her best friend, though, is our Yellow Lab, Buddy. She gives him lots of hugs and kisses and likes to play around with him. He's a pretty good sport, although I think he'd rather nap most of the time. Nora loves to sing, dance, read, and play. She was a little slow on talking, but is really starting to catch up. We will have to watch what we say around her very soon. She'll be a little parrot in no time. My brother's fiancée just had a baby girl on December 4th, and Nora is thrilled to have a little baby around. She doesn't know just yet that she will have a friend and playmate soon. For now, she's content to hold and talk to the baby. So cute!

I stayed at home with Nora until she was 18 months old. Then, I decided to go back to work part-time as a substitute teacher. I only work at the schools here in town and on the days that Joe is off (no daycare worries for us!). I still stay pretty busy with those limitations. I really enjoy the variety of doing something different each day that I work. I sub for every class at every level, so it makes life interesting! Through subbing, I discovered that I have a strong desire to be a grade school teacher. (I majored in agricultural education in college). Because of that, I made the decision to return to school to earn my degree in elementary education. I'm only taking classes part-time over the internet, so it will be several years before I am ready to have my own classroom. The plan is to go back to work full-time after our child(ren) are in school. Until then, I will continue to sub.

We wish you nothing but the best in this holiday season! We hope that 2009 will be a prosperous year for you. Please feel free to check back to this website for frequent updates on our lives. We hope to hear from you soon!

Much Love,

Joe, Sylvia and Nora