Christmas letter 2018

Hello family and friends:

I hope this letter finds everyone doing well.  We’ve had another blessed year and hope you have as well.

I'm still at TI but my job has recently changed.  I have taken on additional responsibility and I'm now the director for training and technical documentation across the company.  I'm very excited about this new challenge and look forward to what it will bring in the coming years.  I traveled to China for almost 2 weeks this year, Houston to meet some of my new team and I'm headed to California and Tucson for a few days to meet more team members.   Next year I will travel some more but mainly domestic.   I still did a lot for PTA that was very heavy in the fall.  I did spirit wear at the middle school which was interesting if nothing else to be allowed there during lunch for a few days ;).  At the elementary school I did fundraising, took on corporate sponsorships,  and still helping with the web page.  I'm also still co-leading Kasey's Junior girl scout troop.  Its been fun this year because we are having the girls plan the badge work and then present it and get the other girls involved.  We even did some badge work at TI this month which was fun.   I'm still enjoying working out at the gym in Plano - such a fun group and working out always makes you feel better.

Greg has gotten a lot more involved in Landon's Boy Scout troop.  He's in charge of adult training (administrative side), he works with all scouts and adults to set up board of review - each scout has to talk to group of adults in interview type format before receiving their next rank.  He's also taken on being clubhouse coordinator for our neighborhood.   Its been interesting :)  Most of all he's home helping get the kids where they need to go, making sure we have dinner during the week, and helping out where he can.  We've still been going to A&M football games this year at least home games.  We enjoyed renting houses for games we went to which makes it nice to get kids to bed and let the adults hang out with some football and a few drinks.

The biggest thing from this year is that we remodeled our house this summer.  We completely redid the kitchen, redid all floors, painted most rooms and redid the kids bathrooms.  It was a major project that took 10-12 weeks.  Since it was summer we were very fortunately to have several friends who let us stay at their house while they went on vacation.   With this project we haven't traveled anywhere this  year as a family.  That's been weird.  

Over the summer, both kids went to sleep away camp for a week at Pine Cove. They had fun.  Landon also went to Tennessee with Scouts for summer camp.  Afterwards he went to Knoxville to visit with a friend that moved away for a few days.  Needless to say Landon was gone most of June.

In October, Greg and I went to Napa for about a day and half to get away for a bit and go to an allocation party at one of our favorite wineries - Allora.   We needed to fill up our new wine fridge that was part of the kitchen remodel :)  We had fun at the allocation party.   One of the activities was wine stomping - competition between most of the people.  We stomped grapes, filled up a jug and took turns helping.  Somewhere along the way I lost my Aggie ring.  We tried to find it on the grounds that night and the next morning but no luck.  Later that week we heard back from the grape stomping company.  Luckily they had not gotten rid of the grapes and found my ring.   It took a little while to get back but I was very thankful to have it on my hand.

We are looking forward to traveling somewhere next year as a family

Kasey is now 10.   She's in 4th grade.   She's taking hip hop with one of the other girl scouts and still taking piano.    She's still doing Girl Scouts and is a Junior now.  She's been helping since last year to plan and give some of the badge work which is a nice change for the leaders, and good for the girls to take on more responsibility.   Kasey has now decided she doesn't like Hallmark movies anymore, but she's watched the entire series of the Flash and really likes that.  She loves unicorns, has been encouraged to believe in the magic of Christmas, and puts a lot of importance on her friends.   There is definitely more drama with girls, but we will get through it.  Kasey is very spirited and will be a good leader some day.   This year she was pretty vocal that Christmas music and decor should not be until after Thanksgiving - I think mainly because her birthday is around there.

Landon is now 12 1/2, and in 7th grade which is the first year of middle school for us.  Landon played football this fall - he played right tackle and linebacker and he enjoyed it even though the team didn't win to many games.  He's also in band which is a big deal in Allen. He's playing french horn and was just notified that he'll move up to the next band starting spring semester.  He was pretty excited about this but will cause his schedule to move around a bit.   Landon has made a lot of progress in Scouts this year.  He is done with his Star (after Star he will have Life and Eagle) requirements and working to finish up scoutmaster conference and board of review.   He was patrol leader for his patrol the last 6 months.  Now he will be one of the quarter masters working to take care of equipment and trailers.  Landon and I really enjoy watching superhero TV shows and movies together.  He plays Fortnite and online games with his friend likely to much, but he enjoys it.

We hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.  May God Bless you this 

coming year.

Love,     Dana, Greg, Landon, Kasey & Patch Myers