Family and Friends...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our friends and family.

2006 has been another blessed year for our family.

Jake continues to enjoy school and his new neighborhood and friends. He began the year by finishing his basketball season on a high note. His team took second and he learned a lot of new things about teamwork and hard work. He had a good baseball season and continued to have his ups and downs throughout the season. He started the year playing 3rd base and finished playing 2nd base. Next year we begin kid pitch. Heads up batter!! We went on our annual ski trip to Winter Park, CO and he really had a blast and got so good that by the end he was almost skiing better than us. The summer finished with our annual trip to Beaver Lake, AR. Jake amazed us both by deciding that he was going to put his own skis on and get up on his water skis without help. After a couple of tries he was off. Also, he learned to kneeboard forward and backward this summer too.

As second grade began Jake went through his normal adjustment period. Over the last month or so he has taken to reading “chapter books” and can’t get enough of new words, new characters, and wants to buy or check out new books daily. He loves his teacher Miss Cannady and she is doing a great job encouraging him with all of his work.

Jill has had an interesting year. She fell on our last run on our last day of skiing in March. Six weeks later, after a painful 9 hour car ride from Colorado, Jill had ligament replacement surgery (ACL) which went well and she was up and around a few weeks later. She still works at Bank of America but now has moved closer to home and works on the west side of town with a large, diverse team. At times it has been challenging but she perseveres for the sake of all her customers whom she loves and looks forward to seeing whenever they come to visit her.

Scott has continued his work at Pfizer. He is about to finish his 6th year. There have been challenging times as the company makes major changes in personnel again next year. He continues to love coaching Jake’s baseball and basketball teams. When he is not coaching or working he has been doing some running. He completed his goal of finishing the Turkey Trot, a 10 mile run, in less than ninety minutes. He looks forward to getting ready for the Wichita half marathon next September. Oh yea he turned 40!!

Our family is about to be completed, as many of you know we received our adoption match on her eighth month birthday, November 30th. Baby Emma will be able to come home with us around the first of February. It will be a two week trip for the whole family.

Merry Christmas and thanks again for your thoughts and prayers

Scott, Jill, Jacob and Emma