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2005 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas! As I write this letter, most of our Christmas cards are already in the mail winging their way to your mailboxes. (I figured the motivation I needed to get this year�s Christmas letter written would finally come if I just went ahead and put the cards in the mail.)

In January/February, I was the assistant director in the FBC dinner theatre production of "Anything Goes". As with most theatre productions - you end up living and breathing the show. You're exhausted, tell yourself you must be crazy to volunteer this much time ... but by the time opening night arrives you realize why you do it every year!

In February. after almost 30 years in my childhood home - my parents moved. They moved less than TWO MILES from their old house ... but what a difference two miles makes. Now they've got everything on one level and even more important -- they now have a POOL. My only question was why did they wait until both my brother and I are married and living on our own to have a pool? There was much gleeful swimming with our summertime visits ... even MacGyver went swimming once.

In June, four and a half years after starting the process � Steve�s greencard got the final approval. I can�t even begin to tell you how much this means to have this journey over with (for the next 10+ years anyway!) He was in Memphis on business the very next week so he went to the INS office and got his new greencard and the nice stamp in his British passport that says he�s a lawful permanent resident of the United States of America! It's nice to have a completely legal alien in the household!

In July, I had my ten-year high school reunion. While it was nice to see a few of my classmates ... I know why you only have reunions every ten years! I was on the planning committee - so we'd been working on it for almost a year by the time the event actually rolled around. Argh ...

2005 has been a year of traveling for us. Unfortunately, we�ve mostly been traveling separately. Steve spent about 6 months traveling this year. He was gone every single week going out to HCA hospitals all over the US: Denver, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Elko, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Savannah, Georgia; Cleveland, Mississippi; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Blythe, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Memphis, TN; Lake Havasu City, Arizona; Shreveport, Louisiana; Roanoke, Virginia � and the list goes on. He got to see a lot of the country this year (including Graceland) � and racked up quite a few frequent flier miles. We�re hoping to use those miles next year on a trip we can go on TOGETHER (perhaps to celebrate our five year wedding anniversary this year!).

In May we went up to Chicago for the England versus USA football (soccer) game. The game had great atmosphere � with more than half of the 50,000 crowd being England fans. English flags were everywhere in the stadium � if you were to just look at the stadium you would think there were ONLY England fans there � there were that many flags. England won 2-1 in a great match. I love soccer (football) because it�s 90 minutes of playing time - not long and drawn out with time-outs and yadda yadda yadda. 45 minutes. 15 minute half time. 45 minutes. The game is finished. American Football could learn a few things from that!

I went on a few trips this year � just call me Church-Trip-Lacy. In June, I went with our church�s students on Choir Tour. We were going to our old stomping grounds from our first year of marriage � Washington, D.C. My responsibilities on the trip included being the nurse, trip blogger [click here to read it], one of the photographers, and putting together the photo slideshow (mmmm .... apple). It was a great week - despite spending the first night in the emergency room with a very sick teenager. It wouldn't be a church trip without at least ONE trip to the hospital, right?

In July, I went to summer camp at Doublehead Resort in Alabama with the student ministry at church. I had been working on camp for months - doing the graphic design for the brochures, t-shirts, etc. It was another great week. Yes - there's lots of silly games, messy contests, and sports competitions - but there's even more meaningful and in-depth Bible study time, extremely well-thought-out worship time, and other special times that helps the students grow in their Christian walk of life. One of my favorite moments was on the last night of camp - we met on the beach and our student minister personally blessed each and every member of the outgoing senior class (he would say something positive and personal about each student, and then give them encouragement about their future). Then the seniors were to go out and bless someone else. When one of the senior girls came up to me - I truly DID feel blessed. This is a camp tradition - and all of our students look forward to the moment when it's their turn. It was a special night - one of blessings and encouragement for the students and adult leaders.

Steve continued to work on The Never-Ending Deck Project ^TM this year. I do have to admit that though the project does never seem to end ... what he does is really beautiful. We've also spent some time this summer getting the garden to be a bit more manageable. The previous owners of our home went perennial planting crazy. There are about 13 large beds of perennials on the property - and they must have planted what feels like a couple hundred perennials. I think half of the plants don't even bloom to their full potential because they're being constantly overshadowed by the 15 other perennials planted within 6 inches of them. So - we're going through and deciding what plants we like and want to keep and digging up the ones we don't. Good-bye rose bushes. Goodbye anything else prickly and things that only bloom for 2 days. Hello and welcome to low maintenance and yet pretty and evergreen plants/flowers/shrubs that are pretty even in the winter months

The week after Christmas, Steve and I are going on a ski trip to Indiana with our church (see, I told you - Church-Trip-Lacy. Now it's Church-Trip-Tites.) Steve's dying to get some snowboarding in ... and I must be dying to have a sore backside and bruised knees (I never stay upright for long!) Never-the-less, it will be nice to travel together and have a few days away before starting another year!

A few favorite photos from 2005: