A Christmas Letter to Our Family & Friends

This year I decided to use our blog to type up our yearly Christmas letter. Blaine and I have had a very crazy year. We have made many friends and had to leave many who we miss. I decided this year I would do a month by month analysis of what has been going on so you can keep up on the craziness of the year.

January - May

In January of last year Blaine started a new job with Georgia Pacific as their Plant Engineer at their lumber plant in Columbia, MS. This meant that we would be moving from Virginia to Mississippi. However because I was in the middle of a school year, and I did not have to student teach, I had to complete the year in order to get my professional teaching license. This meant that for teh next 6 months we would be living in different states. We spent that time with one or the other of us traveling back and forth at least twice a month. Blaine found a small home in Columbia to live in while he was waiting for me. While Blaine was working at Georgia Pacific I was busy teaching my special needs preschool class, trying to sell the house and finishing up anything that needed to be done in Virginia.

June - August

The school year in Virginia ended in the middle of June. I then had to say goodbye to a school that I loved plus many other friends that we had. Virginia was the first place that we had lived for over 2 years since we have been married. We actually live there for 4 years. So even though the house wasn't sold, I headed to Mississippi to finally be with my husband again. However I had only been in Mississippi for 2 weeks when Blaine and I headed to Utah for about a week and a half of the 4th of July to visit his family. After a great vacation to Utah, Blaine had various trainings for thenext month so I went to my parent's house in Charlotte, NC, so I wasn't sitting in Mississippi by myself. Finally the second week of August we made it back to Mississippi for good. After we got back we added 2 Jack Russell terriers to our family, Flip and Clutch.

September - November

Though we were back in Mississippi for good, our house in Virginia had still not sold . This meant that we were living in a small rental home in the middle of nowhere. Luckily in the relocation package that Georgia Pacific gave Blaine, if the house did not sell within 3 months, then the company would buy it for the appraised value. This brought about organizing many repais on our house in Virginia so that the company would buy it. In October we found a permanant rental home in the Hattiesburg area of Mississippi which we absolutely love. I went back to Virginia to move threst of our stuff so that we could fanlly be settled. In November we fianlly closed on the Virginia house with Georgia Pacific.

December

So that brings us to now. We are fianlly settled into our home and enjoying Mississippi. We are both very involved in our church and have met some new great friends.

We are truly grateful for the blessing that our Heavenly Father has given us this year. We hope this letter finds each of you happy and looking foward to the Christmas season.