2012 Already?

It’s only Dec. 24th, and I’m sitting down to write a Christmas letter with one whole day to spare!  We’ve been enjoying the cards and letters that have been filling our mail box for the past couple of weeks and enjoying hearing how 2011 is rounding out for everyone. 

Our year was filled to over-flowing, but for the life of me the only thing I can think to tell you about is Kaitlyn. It is hard to believe how much she’s changed in a year.  I don’t know what we’ve been feeding her, but apparently it agrees with her since she is topping out at about 32” currently and who knows how many lbs.! We’ll head to the Dr. in Jan. for her 18mo. check-up and weigh-in.  I’m guessing she’s around 24lbs.

I won’t go through all the “Kaitlyn Events” of the last year since they are all posted here, but just a couple highlights; Kaitlyn turned 1 in July and we made the drive (3 days) back to Utah to celebrate with family and friends.   Kaitlyn racked up 4 birthday parties along the way and enjoyed her first taste of birthday cake x4!  She’s not an ice cream girl though.  We think maybe because of milk allergies which were confirmed over Thanksgiving when she drank her first and probably last (at least for a little while) cup of cow’s milk and promptly emptied her tummy, confirming the positive allergy test to milk. 

Kaitlyn is walking/running all over and talking up a storm- usually she has a lot to say about animals, and there are even the mornings we wake up to neighing, meowing, or barking coming from her room…the girl LOVES her animals! 

We made a huge number of trips this year, taking advantage of the trips Nate needed to make for work to add a couple of days and enjoy some new sights.  Nate also made a couple of solo trips – one to San Francisco for an annual conference that he attends and also to Rio Brazil for yet another conference!   Nate’s trip calendar for 2012 is starting to fill in: San Francisco for sure with possible conferences (pending on paper acceptance) in South Korea, Stockholm, and Montreal. I have to say (and I know this is terrible of me) I’m kind of hoping that Stockholm doesn’t pan out since I’d love to go and the tickets just aren’t in the budget this year. 

June 9th we celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a trip a couple days later to Whistler B.C. (for a conference for Nate too) – I’m not a big skier, but I’d love to just enjoy Whistler in the winter though it was gorgeous in the summer too.  We were able to visit some friends in Vancouver on our way up to the resort and just managed to miss the riots that broke out after the Stanley Cup game that happened to be in Vancouver that weekend.

Kaitlyn attended her first wedding in September.  We made  a quick weekend trip back to Utah to celebrate Nate’s Dad’s re-marriage and soak in some more family.  I think Kaitlyn was there for the shoes.  She LOVES shoes and couldn’t get enough of showing people her shoes and checking out all the fancy wedding shoes. 

This fall has been packed with school/work for Nate and story time, butterflies, and shopping for us girls.  We were happy to have my folks join us for Thanksgiving and are looking forward to more visitors in 2012!

We wish you all the very best in the year to come, and hope that the holidays bring you much joy!

Love,

Jen, Nate, & Kaitlyn