MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009

Two thousand nine was a good year to end the decade on. We reached many new milestones in this life’s journey and have been very blessed along the way. Here are just a few highlights:

Julia – Now 14 and in HIGH SCHOOL. I put high school in capital letters because that truly doubled the busyness of all our lives. Julia’s extracurricular activities include the marching band, literary club, and (very) early morning seminary. In addition to playing flute, she has decided to learn the French horn to add to her repertoire. She earned her Girl Scout Silver Award this summer when she taught a Spanish class at the local library for a week. She also had a little make over this summer in preparation for high school with hair straightening, ear piercing and contact lenses. She has blossomed into a beautiful young woman!

Anna – Now 12 and in middle school. She is having a wonderful time! She is loving being in Young Women’s at church and is working diligently on her goals for their program. She is also very busy in school with orchestra and writing for the school newspaper. She still is very content to read a book for hours, type a new story, knit, or draw Imagiana characters in her journal.

Eliza – Is 7 and in the 2^nd grade. She is full of life and can talk a mile a minute about anything and everything. She is taking on a leadership role in her school classroom which is giving her extra confidence (not that she was lacking) and she has shown a great interest in math (hooray – one child got my genes). She is also in the great books club during school to keep her more occupied. She did a great job with soccer this past Fall, just finished being a Munchkin in the Wizard of Oz, and is doing well with learning to play the piano.

Mom and Dad – We are now 40 J. Austin has been super busy working his regular job as well as teaching two Spanish courses at night. He is doing finals this week and is looking forward to his 3 week break! He and I are still heavily involved with the Spanish members of our church and just got an additional calling to be directors over the Youth Trek next summer (yikes!). If anyone has any past experiences of Trek, please share!! I’m still working part-time at the community college behind our house and spend the rest of my time running someone, somewhere, for something. There is never a dull moment.

This summer we were able to enjoy going to Maine, New York and out West to visit with many friends and family members. The girls loved their cousin reunions! Our highlights included Yellowstone, tubing, visiting local gardens, Mercer Castle, and touring the BYU campus. My niece moved up to Philly this summer and the girls have loved having a cousin close by for once. It has been fun to have her visit on the weekends. It’s hard to believe another year has gone by so quickly!! It makes me realize how much we need to treasure the time we have here on this earth and make the most of it. Having fun with your family is the best gift you can get!

Hope everyone is doing well and feeling some of the peace this time of year can bring.

Love,

The Wrights

Christmas Day

We started off the morning eating blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls before the girls tore excitedly into their gifts...

Julia loved her BYU hat

Eliza made gifts for everyone including scarfs and this giraffe

Anna loved her knitted hat and peace shirt

The polka-dot pants live on...yes!

Santa thanked Eliza for leaving him cookies...


Then the girls had fun the rest of the afternoon building their snow fort...

Ronny enjoyed watching them play

We finished the day by having our friends, the Wilsons, over for a yummy ham dinner and games. It was quite a joyous and fun day!!

Christie & Chris get married

Leaving the Orlando Temple

Cutting the cake

Last week I traveled down to Florida to see the much anticipated wedding of my niece. She and Chris were married in the Orlando Temple on December 19th (Austin's b-day). The day was beautiful and it was fun to see these two finally make it to the altar. For their reception that evening they had a beach/luau theme going on. I enjoyed meeting up with some old friends and a few relatives who came to the event.

Mary Wright, Heather Mueller, Mybree Michaud

My biggest adventure of the weekend was flying standby when 13 out of the 16 flights back to Philly had been canceled due to the blizzard. Through a miracle and an unknown flight to most sitting around in the airport, I was able to make it back by Sunday night. Woo-hoo!

Let it Snow!

Philadelphia got slammed with the second biggest snowstorm recorded in history on December 19th. (A blizzard also hit 40 years ago that day when Austin was born) I missed seeing it fall because I was in Florida at my nieces wedding. The girls took some pics and Julia made Austin a fancy cake in my absence.

Winter Pics

We had our first snowfall yesterday and caught a few pics after church for proof. After lunch we had a fun snowball fight and the girls when sledding with their cousins.

Christie and Chris

Grammy & Grampy

The Cutest Munchkin

Waving bye to Dorothy

Eliza took part in the High School Production of the "Wizard of Oz" this weekend. She played a munchkin. She's the one with the big flower on her hat.

Eliza and Ayden "backstage"

Longwood, part 2