Christmas Letter 2012 - Part 1

December 5, 2012

Merry Christmas to You All,

Can you believe that another year has come and gone? It seems that they years are flying by so fast. I will just give you the highlights of each person as usual and hope this letter finds you all well and blessed for the New Year!

Prince and Princess number 1 – They have been married a year next week. (Click here for a post of the big day or look up wedding in the search at the bottom and you can read all about decorations, food etc.) They are happy and living just north of us about two hours. Princess 1 is still working for the state transitioning foster children into adult living. She helps them get apartments, training, schooling and jobs. Her husband is working on his master’s degree in Civil Engineering dealing with water treatment systems. He was blessed to get two scholarships and a paid work study grant which paid for this semester and we hope he can do the same for next. After that he will be finished and will hopefully be able to find a job near us so we can continue to enjoy visits every so often.

Princess 2 – 22. If you remember last year’s letter, she had just left to go on a mission to Taiwan for 18 months.(Click here for that post)  However, she started having health problems a month or two in with nausea and then it escalated to stomach pain, (Click here for that) which then escalated and two weeks ago, she had gallbladder surgery. (Click here for that post) We were SO grateful to figure out what has been causing her all the pain with eating for the past year. She had all the classic symptoms but none of the tests came back positive. They eat lots of meat in Taiwan which made it to worse. The surgeon said there was scarring and it had to come out. She has felt better these past two weeks than she has in over a year. She was sad to have to come home early from Taiwan a few months ago but the pain she was having was horrible. She also developed a staph infection on her skin (Click here for a post before we figured out what it was.) which was finally cleared up before she arrived home after 8 months of horror and scaring. She met many wonderful friends on her mission and enjoyed learning Chinese and visited the second tallest building in the world. We are hoping that 2013 will be a better year for her as her future is already looking up! She isn’t sure if she wants to continue with a Masters degree, find a job or return to a mission. I am sure whatever she chooses will be the right choice for her.

Princess number three– 18. Graduated high school and gave a wonderful address at graduation (click here for that post) as the Student Body President. She got offered scholarships for academics and chose to attend College which is about an hour north of us. I visit her each week and we eat lunch together. It is nice to keep up with what is going on in her world. She was chosen also to be an Ambassador for the College which gives her a scholarship on top of her scholarship and keeps her active in the running of the college. She also was blessed to find her a job in the finance department which is the highest paying job on campus for a student.  She is making money going to school. She LOVES it and you can see her room at college on my blog. (Click here for that post) Our church just announced that women can now go on 18 month missions at age 19 instead of 21 so she is planning on graduating early so she can go on a mission before heading back for more schooling. She is really happy and busy and we miss having her at home but her sisters enjoy it all the more when she does come home to visit.