Merry Christmas

The enhanced version of our Christmas letter.....(enhanced because you can click on certain items to read more about the experience.)

Top 5 places we visited in 2011:

1.       Hell’s Canyon (family camping trip) (1, 2, 3)

2.       Honduras (Kevin)

3.       Vancouver Island Canada (all of us) (1,2,3,4,5,6,7, 8)

4.       Backstage with Amy Grant and Michael W Smith

5.       Obsidian lava flows, Bend OR

Somewhat significant things of 2011

1.       Climbing Mt Pinnacle with the Eubanks family (missionaries from Burma)

2.       No more training wheels for Kayleigh

3.       Started the first annual Harvest 10K race at our church (and Jill won 1^st for Women)

4.       Rafting the Deschuttes river with half our church

5.       Adding hermit crabs to the living room (one is still alive too)

6.       Our first successful garden (why do we get 600 lbs of zucchini, what normal person could use that much zucchini?)

7.       Started an outdoor ministry at church (so far I’m the only one who goes to the events, but hey, we have t-shirts!)

8.       Climbed some new alpine peaks this year including Mt Adams

9.       Organized a church viewing of the film 58:, (got a lot of our church family interested in Compassion)

10.    Sent 50+ child Christmas boxes through Samaritan’s Purse (really neat considering the small size of our church)

11.    Jill’s blog was awarded a prize for the highest ratio of time-spent-blogging versus number of readers (a prestigious distinction she really earned)

Plans for 2012:

1.       Do 20 push-ups in a row (for Jill of course, I can do 2000!)

2.       Publish a book

3.       Prepare for a family mission trip to Thailand

4.       Have more than 3 friends in the state of Oregon

5.       Run <7 min miles

6.       Go to NY in June for the last Foley wedding

7.       Buy a new cheese grater (I hate the one we have)

8.       Prepare for the Mayan end of the world

9.       Go to Nicaragua in February (Kevin)

10.    Keep enough hair to justify not shaving my head (it’s almost gone but I’m still holding out)

Top books of 2011:

1.       Urchin of the Riding Stars (M. I. McAllister) – Sydney

2.       Reasonable Faith (William Lane Craig) – Kevin

3.       The Divine Mentor (Wayne Cordeiro) – Jill

4.       Angus and Sadie (Cynthia Voigt) - Kayleigh

Top 5 things our kids keep saying and we don’t know why:

1.       “Gilgamesh” (Syd’s favorite word, can be used as curse word or an expression of joy)

2.       “Scalacher” (the name of Syd’s stuffed animal)

3.       “I don’t want to eat” (Kayleigh continues to live on 200 calories per day)

4.       “We’re tired of hiking all the time”

5.       “When is it going to snow here?”