In the blink of an eye: Merry Christmas!

the Christmas cards are mailed with the letter inserted...

and BEFORE Christmas!

on time(ish)

this is for those who do not receive one in the mail~a brief update of our year:

Dear family & friends,

Wow! It’s that time of year again for an update on the otten family. We hope that our annual Christmas letter finds you all well and that you are enjoying the Blessings of this Season. We wish you a joyous Christmas with your loved ones, with God’s richest blessings for 2014!

We have been blessed once again with health & prosperity for which we are very thankful! As we get older, the years seem to go by quicker! This will be a brief highlight of our year.

Eryn~19, is enjoying her second year of university much more than her first! This year’s courses are much more focused on her program rather than the general classes she had to take last year. She has learned so much and really finds it all so fascinating and difficult at the same time. She enjoys spending any free moment in her week with Kevin. They have been dating for just over a year, and love being completely silly with each other!

Dani~18, is in her first year of college in the occupational/physiotherapy assistant program. She is attending Niagara College, the Welland campus, so she can live at home with school being just 20 min away. She’s just finished up her first set of exams for this term and is ready for a nice long Christmas break! Danielle is also now a first time vehicle owner…yep, bought a car to get her to school and to her boyfriend’s house! She & Ron have also been dating for just over a year now and see a lot of each other, as he also goes to our church. This past summer, together they had the opportunity to head up to Moose Factory Island in Moosonee, Northern Ontario(just south of James Bay), with the youth group to work with the Cree people. They worked with another youth group from Pennsylvania, doing VBS and outreach work with the locals. They were able to show the love of Christ to the people there and bring God’s Word to them.

Veronica~15, is enjoying her sophomore year in high school. She is becoming quite the chef as she took a foods course this semester. For this class she needed to make from scratch any recipe of her choosing and then do a blog post complete with photos to document each step. She has made cinnamon rolls (which, by the way, we have every Sunday morning), chili, quiche, butternut squash soup and pizza with all the fix’ns. These are just some of the great meals she’s made for us. Next year, she is eager to get her G1 driving permit~gulp! Veronica has also been doing a lot of babysitting for area families. She has taken over these jobs that her two older sisters used to claim, but now are too ‘socially busy’ to do! Veronica loves to oblige as she loves the kids!

Levi~14, is adjusting well to his freshman year in high school. Levi got to experience his gr 8 year end class camping trip to Algonquin park with his dad! They had a ton of fun doing lots of canoeing, swimming & hiking. He has made the basketball team and has me out there at 6:30am for Monday morning practice~yawn! This year he has also decided to grow…he’s almost caught up to me(I know, not much of a stretch!) and if this keeps up will surpass me soon~sigh. He enjoys having the older boyfriends around more…a little more testosterone in the air!

Jordyn~11, loves gr 6. Actually, she has always loved school. She has been growing her hair long in order to donate it someday to ‘angel hair’ for kids battling cancer. Her hair is almost waist length so, we will be cutting it soon!! Very often she’ll ask me if she can ‘do’ my hair, as she loves to style & braid hair. She has even done Veronica’s hair for school~cute, eh! Recently, Jordyn has been outfitted with an appliance in her mouth as her teeth/jaw need adjusting. She has been getting used to talking with an upper and lower retainer in her mouth. I did ask her teacher to not call on Jordyn to read aloud in class till she can enunciate her words more clearly!! Soon, she’ll have a mouthful of metal just like Veronica, most likely in 6 months.

Wayne & I continue to be blessed with work. Earlier this year we were blessed with a trip to Mexico, courtesy of Turkstra Lumber! We Had a Blast!! We took every opportunity to explore & try new things in the Mayan Riviera! We braved the heights of para sailing, snorkeled amongst the beautiful reefs off the coast and discovered Mayan history at the historical ruins at Talum. We were definitely pampered for a week~so nice!

Another change here was that we were unable to keep the little French bulldog that we had, due to the fact that he was getting increasingly aggressive. He had bitten a couple of us and I was unwilling to risk that he would bite a guest coming to our home. Our boxer, Mika, missed him terribly, but is doing much better. We fondly remember the little lug, and were sad to see him go. We continue to be busy with school & church functions as well as spending much time together as family.

God has certainly blessed us richly once again this year. May we continually give Him the glory for the wonderful gift He has given in the birth of His Son & thus the reason for this Christmas season!!

Sending our love, Wayne, Brenda, Eryn, Danielle, Veronica, Levi & Jordyn Otten