Enter Christmas cards - every single year I have the intention of having my cards and letter, signed, sealed and delivered the week of Thanksgiving! Well... it is the first full week of May and you guessed it, the Christmas cards and letter are just now going in the mail. Make that the Christmas cards from the past two years!!
Oh well, better late than never, right??
So, for those of you that I hand delivered the Christmas cards to, here's the letter to go with it:)!
Merry Christmas all year round:)!
Christmas in July, Ok, well May…
Hello everyone…
Slacker – that’s the only word for it – slacker, slacker, slacker!! Yes, you are seriously getting TWO Christmas cards in one envelope with a letter on Valentine’s paper and it is almost the middle of MAY!!! (After I missed Christmas, I was going to send out the Christmas cards with a Valentine’s letter.)
I really have the best of intentions – every year I vow that I’m going to have the Christmas cards out by Thanksgiving with a nice Christmas letter on top of it! And, well, you see the resultsJ!
So much has happened in our lives, as I’m sure it has in everyone else’s!! I know this because I get your Christmas cards and letters (on time, I might add, in direct contrast to my extreme tardiness!)! Seriously – one of the highlights of my year is when I get Christmas cards! I love to sit and look at the pictures and see how all the kiddos are growing and to read about how your lives are going as well!
Anyway… Megan is graduating this month and leaving the nest to head for Canada! She is pursuing her dream of becoming a very competitive show jumper and having her own equestrian facility. It seems hard to believe that the teeny tiny baby that
was born so very early almost eighteen years ago, is really old enough to be graduating from high school and heading out the door. In my mind she is still that little bitty baby and the feisty toddler and the sweet little elementary school girl. She isn’t all grown up. Really. She’s not. Oh, but she is! I am ever amazed at God’s goodness in blessing me with her. I couldn’t ask for anything more – she even keeps her bedroom spotless. All the time. Without a word from me. Seriously! Don’t ask how that happened because as the years roll by I seem to become more and more unorganized. She is driven, focused and ready to face the future more than I think I am even today. She blows me away!
So… what is she going to be doing in Canada?? She will be living at an equestrian facility (www.wachterhorses.com). While she is there she will assist in all areas of the facility – from the breeding program to manual labor, from breaking and training horses to being trained as a rider, from assisting at very high level competitions
(think mini-Olympics) to competing at those same competitions. She is so very excited and honestly, while Wyatt and I will miss her, we are very excited for her.
Speaking of Wyatt… can anyone say “little guy with a mind as sharp as a tack, a sense of humor to rival an adults and a will that is steel enforced driven by the energizer bunny”? If you can say all of that, you have summed up our little guy perfectly! He is seriously smart – I’m not biased. Really. Remember, I’m an educator. The kid is smart – the other day it was 7:08 and he said, without pausing to think, “Hey mom. It’s 7:08. My bedtime is 8:00. That means I have 52 minutes until bedtime.” Umm. Wow. You’re right! He is seriously funny as well – my list of “Wyatt stories” is a mile long!! His strong will wears me out on a daily basis – it takes everything I have to stay one step ahead of this guy! This worries me, because the older I get, the slower I get and he seems to just speed up. Anyone see a potential problem in the futureJ? He is also such a sweet little boy – he always, well almost always, has time to give hugs and kisses to his mommy. Melts my heart. Everytime. He is in first grade right now and stays busy with Cub Scouts, AWANAs and friends. The dude is a social butterfly always asking when the next play date is. He keeps Megan and me laughing and pulling our hair out all at the same time, all the time! What a joy and an indescribable gift from Heaven.
As far as Heaven goes, it had been almost five years since Kyle went to be there. My mind has a hard time wrapping around that fact. He is still missed so very much and we talk about him on a regular basis. Wyatt is full of questions about what his daddy was like. While it is always fun to answer his questions, it is also heartbreaking because part of my heart rebels at the thought that Kyle isn’t here to see his kids grow up. I fight the notion, well, the reality really, that he is gone and all we’re left with are our memories and pictures. Such a big hole that God is gracious enough to put bubble wrap around and continue healing.
As you can tell, Megan and Wyatt keep me so very busy, but I manage to throw a few of my own activities into the mix as well. We are active at church – I teach in the single parent ministry every third weekend and stay busy with the choir. After being home for two school years, I went back to work part time in order to have decent health insurance at a fraction of private health insurance costJ. I work for Spring Branch ISD as a Literacy Coach – this means that I work with the teachers and help them with their literacy instruction. I really like the job and am so blessed to be working for a wonderful principal. In addition to that, my love for photography has grown from a hobby to a business and this year (2009) I have literally seen an explosion in the amount I am shooting. I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world. My website is www.monicajune.com and is slowly coming along. My goal is to use the summer to really make it a fabulous marketing tool and to continue to grow my business.
Life is so good. Although we fuss from time to time, we really shouldn’t! God is so good to us and for His blessings we are tremendously thankful! We hope that you are having a wonderful year and I look forward to everyone’s cards again this winter. Hopefully, I’ll do better about getting my own cards in the mail. Although, now that I think about it, “Christmas in July” (or May) might be a fun Hodges’ traditionJ!
Praying for God’s richest blessings on all of you,
Monica, Megan and Wyatt
Hello everyone…
Slacker – that’s the only word for it – slacker, slacker, slacker!! Yes, you are seriously getting TWO Christmas cards in one envelope with a letter on Valentine’s paper and it is almost the middle of MAY!!! (After I missed Christmas, I was going to send out the Christmas cards with a Valentine’s letter.)
I really have the best of intentions – every year I vow that I’m going to have the Christmas cards out by Thanksgiving with a nice Christmas letter on top of it! And, well, you see the resultsJ!
So much has happened in our lives, as I’m sure it has in everyone else’s!! I know this because I get your Christmas cards and letters (on time, I might add, in direct contrast to my extreme tardiness!)! Seriously – one of the highlights of my year is when I get Christmas cards! I love to sit and look at the pictures and see how all the kiddos are growing and to read about how your lives are going as well!
Anyway… Megan is graduating this month and leaving the nest to head for Canada! She is pursuing her dream of becoming a very competitive show jumper and having her own equestrian facility. It seems hard to believe that the teeny tiny baby that
was born so very early almost eighteen years ago, is really old enough to be graduating from high school and heading out the door. In my mind she is still that little bitty baby and the feisty toddler and the sweet little elementary school girl. She isn’t all grown up. Really. She’s not. Oh, but she is! I am ever amazed at God’s goodness in blessing me with her. I couldn’t ask for anything more – she even keeps her bedroom spotless. All the time. Without a word from me. Seriously! Don’t ask how that happened because as the years roll by I seem to become more and more unorganized. She is driven, focused and ready to face the future more than I think I am even today. She blows me away!
So… what is she going to be doing in Canada?? She will be living at an equestrian facility (www.wachterhorses.com). While she is there she will assist in all areas of the facility – from the breeding program to manual labor, from breaking and training horses to being trained as a rider, from assisting at very high level competitions
(think mini-Olympics) to competing at those same competitions. She is so very excited and honestly, while Wyatt and I will miss her, we are very excited for her.
Speaking of Wyatt… can anyone say “little guy with a mind as sharp as a tack, a sense of humor to rival an adults and a will that is steel enforced driven by the energizer bunny”? If you can say all of that, you have summed up our little guy perfectly! He is seriously smart – I’m not biased. Really. Remember, I’m an educator. The kid is smart – the other day it was 7:08 and he said, without pausing to think, “Hey mom. It’s 7:08. My bedtime is 8:00. That means I have 52 minutes until bedtime.” Umm. Wow. You’re right! He is seriously funny as well – my list of “Wyatt stories” is a mile long!! His strong will wears me out on a daily basis – it takes everything I have to stay one step ahead of this guy! This worries me, because the older I get, the slower I get and he seems to just speed up. Anyone see a potential problem in the futureJ? He is also such a sweet little boy – he always, well almost always, has time to give hugs and kisses to his mommy. Melts my heart. Everytime. He is in first grade right now and stays busy with Cub Scouts, AWANAs and friends. The dude is a social butterfly always asking when the next play date is. He keeps Megan and me laughing and pulling our hair out all at the same time, all the time! What a joy and an indescribable gift from Heaven.
As far as Heaven goes, it had been almost five years since Kyle went to be there. My mind has a hard time wrapping around that fact. He is still missed so very much and we talk about him on a regular basis. Wyatt is full of questions about what his daddy was like. While it is always fun to answer his questions, it is also heartbreaking because part of my heart rebels at the thought that Kyle isn’t here to see his kids grow up. I fight the notion, well, the reality really, that he is gone and all we’re left with are our memories and pictures. Such a big hole that God is gracious enough to put bubble wrap around and continue healing.
As you can tell, Megan and Wyatt keep me so very busy, but I manage to throw a few of my own activities into the mix as well. We are active at church – I teach in the single parent ministry every third weekend and stay busy with the choir. After being home for two school years, I went back to work part time in order to have decent health insurance at a fraction of private health insurance costJ. I work for Spring Branch ISD as a Literacy Coach – this means that I work with the teachers and help them with their literacy instruction. I really like the job and am so blessed to be working for a wonderful principal. In addition to that, my love for photography has grown from a hobby to a business and this year (2009) I have literally seen an explosion in the amount I am shooting. I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world. My website is www.monicajune.com and is slowly coming along. My goal is to use the summer to really make it a fabulous marketing tool and to continue to grow my business.
Life is so good. Although we fuss from time to time, we really shouldn’t! God is so good to us and for His blessings we are tremendously thankful! We hope that you are having a wonderful year and I look forward to everyone’s cards again this winter. Hopefully, I’ll do better about getting my own cards in the mail. Although, now that I think about it, “Christmas in July” (or May) might be a fun Hodges’ traditionJ!
Praying for God’s richest blessings on all of you,
Monica, Megan and Wyatt
