Dear Friends and Family,

It seems that all years are busy and 2016 was no exception.

We grew some cucumbers this year, and learned that if you miss one it will grow quite large and turn orange. I wonder how I have lived so long without knowing that cucumbers can be orange. It really should be part of the grade school curriculum.

Ivan is still working at Adobe as a software engineer, but was tapped to be the technical team lead. He’s not entirely sure he likes it and not entirely sure he doesn’t. He also got sent to the DC area to train some new team members there. It was his first time to the capital and he enjoyed seeing some of the sights.

Rachel’s brother came to live with us this year. He and Rachel are attending Salt Lake Community College together and hoping to get accepted into the Physical Therapy Assistant program. They are about to take the final in anatomy, which involves far more memorization than either of them would like, but they’ve been doing pretty well. In her vast amounts of spare time (after being a student, full time mother, and gourmet chef) she also made a sandbox that the kids have loved playing in. We did learn one important lesson though: 1 ton of sand is far too much for a little sandbox. Nor will it fit in a mini-van.

Rachel’s grandmother died at the end of October. It was a sad occassion of course, but it was also nice to see all of her family.

We attended our first Steven’s reunion in quite a number of years and we all had a great time (that’s putting it mildly on the part of the kids).

Avery, our resident third grader, was very excited to be baptized this year. She also had a part in the school play, “The Wizard of Oz”. She started Girl Scouts and Irish dance and loves reading and playing with friends. p.s. I am awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Evelyn is in first grade and got to start the Chinese Immersion program just like her sister. She’s still in Tae Kwon Do and just earned her brown stripe. She also experienced some trauma this year: she had to get glasses (like her father, mother, and older sister). She was always cute, but now she’s even cuter. I think she’s almost used to them by now.

Hazel turned two and has started to show some symptoms of terribleness. She’s loves horses and is constantly pretending to be one. When her pony ride was over at Thanksgiving Point, she started sobbing. Her other love is “The Land Before Time”, and she is always telling us that “I baby sarp-toof” (one of the dinosaurs in that movie is called a sharp tooth).

We send our love and wish you all the best in 2017.

Ivan, Rachel, Avery, Evelyn, and Hazel