Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas (and Happy New Year) to all of our Family and Friends,

It’s a Wonderful Life is one of our favorite family Christmas movies. In the movie the angel Clarence give George a book and writes the following inscription in it: “Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends.” We have been blessed with such wonderful family and friends. We love you and hope that you are doing well. We are thankful everyday for our wonderful blessings that we have been given. It truly is a wonderful life.

(A quick side note: For all of you that can remember last’s years Christmas letter, you may recall that I wrote our annual Christmas letter instead of Patti. Well, she thought that was such a great idea, here I am writing our Christmas letter, again.)

I think that over the years we have always started with our youngest child and ended our letter with me – the old guy. This year I am shaking things up a bit. The old guy get’s to be first this year. J

So here it goes. The first half of my year was consumed with the launch of the Palm Pre. And then, after 10 ½ years at MarketSource, my program changed at the end of August and I was “laid off.” While we were not too excited about being unemployed during tumultuous economic times, we felt rather at peace about the whole situation. So during the month of September I “worked” full-time on getting a new job. (I can’t tell you how awful that was.) So at the beginning of October I was blessed to get a great job with a great local Utah company – I am now an Account Manager at NLU Products in Bluffdale. We manufacture BodyGuardz and ScreenGuardz – full body and screen protectors for mobile phones and electronic devices. The transition from working at home to commuting each day and going to an office has been interesting, but we truly feel blessed as a family to have so quickly found great employment. I have continued to be the 1st Counselor in the Stake Young Men’s Presidency and a Scout Commissioner. I love to spend time with my family – they are wonderful.

Speaking of wonderful, it’s time to move onto my wife Patti. Every year she gets more and more beautiful and amazing. In addition to being the best wife and mother, Patti has kept herself extremely busy being the PTA President last year AND this year, being on the school community council, working a few hours each morning at the kids’ school, and continuing in her church calling as the Primary 1^st Counselor – although she was just released and will be getting a new calling this Sunday. We went to Portland for 3 weeks for our family vacation and got to spend a week at the beach while there. Patti and I also went down to St. George, Utah, for our 14^th anniversary!!! Patti enjoyed seeing New Moon on the first day with her sisters and Jace, loves to be whisked away for our weekly date night on Friday nights, and keeps up with family and friends on Facebook.

And now for the children. We now have a teenager in the house – Jace is now 13. Can you believe it??? Jace is the best teenager that a family could ever ask for – he is our best helper and is so reliable. Jace is in 8^th grade and does excellent in school and still wants to be an engineer when he grows up!!! He is very close to getting his Life scout rank and will be working on getting his Eagle rank in 2010. This summer Jace went on a 67 mile canoe trip with the scouts and survived the mosquitoes. Jace loves to read, go camping, and play night games and video games with his friends and Tanner.

Tanner is 11 years old now and is in 5^th grade this year. He does excellent at school and things seem to come so easy for him. Last year we bought “Rock Band” for the family, and Tanner did so well on the drums we decided to start him in real drum lessons. He is a natural and very talented young drummer – now if we could only get him to practice!!! Tanner just started Boy Scouts this year and enjoyed going on his first campout. Tanner still enjoys video games, but really loves playing and watching football. His friend Liam invited him to two BYU games this year and they had a blast!!! (Jace and I were able to go to one of the games as well – so much fun!!!)

Now that we are done with the boys, it’s on to the girls. Lauren is 9 years old and in the 4^th grade. Lauren is still all girl – she loves dressing up, getting her hair done and I think she may have a secret crush on the Jonas Brothers. (Not that she would admit it and will probably die when she reads this in the Family Christmas Letter.) Lauren loves to plan parties and events and still makes lots of lists. She still loves to draw and can be caught drawing pictures of almost anything.

And last, but certainly not least, is Emma. Emma has somehow survived and is 7 years old now. Isn’t that amazing!?! Emma was so excited this year when she got an Easy Bake Oven for her birthday – now she can cook things all by herself!!! She still enjoys being the center of attention in the home, and lets everyone know it. Emma is always playing with her best friend Halle, and the two have quite the fun time together. They are always having sleepovers and enjoy keeping their parents up late at night. Emma is now in 1^st grade and it was a big transition for her to go to school all day!!! She is becoming quite a good reader and enjoys school.

It really is a wonderful life – remember every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.