Christmas Card Letter

Holiday greetings! Hope this finds you all in great health and cheer this year! The Crawford’s are doing well! I am amazed at how fast these years are starting to tick by. Our children are already five and seven when just yesterday it seems they were throwing temper tantrums and crying from 4 to 7 p.m...oh wait, they still do that. Many other things have changed with them though. Makenna is in 2nd grade and loves school. She also may have stumbled upon her favorite sport this summer by joining our local gym’s swim team. Those first few swim meets gave Scott and I a good taste at competitive sport parenting. One moment we were telling her to just have fun and do her best, be gracious in defeat. A couple of first and second ribbons later it was, “Faster, Makenna! Go, swim harder! Make the girl in lane two eat your dust, baby!” It was all very fun and we look forward to many more good-natured competitions in the future. Riley is in Kindergarten now and doing very well….at least on the days he can keep his hands to himself. He is quite the big boy now and is very sweet. He thinks his big sister is the coolest and always wants to please his parents. He played some golf this spring and after hitting a long driver shot he told the instructor, “That’s how I roll!” Scott was so proud he told the story for weeks….like father like son in some regards. He loves to play football with Scott right now, but I’ve already put my foot down that his football days are numbered. I doubt I win the battle, but I have to put up a good struggle to start, right? Both kids are a lot of fun right now. Each trip, each holiday, each season, gets better in an all new kind of way. We feel very blessed to have them in our lives.

So with the kids back in school I have been looking to go back to work. Not as easy as I thought it would be. I am battling long commutes, a soft job market, a husband that travels, and finding the job I love vs. getting anything out there. I know that it will all fall into place eventually though. As I look back, it always does. Luckily Scott is still doing great at Baker and Taylor and continues to awe me with his work. He makes the difficult look easy and his sales pitch never gets old…unless he’s trying to win something over on me..ha.

We had some fun times this year. We had some good trips to California, three times. Once we went for a summer beach vacation with Scott’s mom. That was a blast with loads of beach days and one afternoon at the races at Del Mar. Makenna kept her horse book for months looking over all of the names. Next we went with some friends to the Cal/Vol game in San Francisco. To see these Berkley people’s faces when the sea of ORANGE came into their campus was priceless. To bad we couldn’t come away with the win in the end as well. Just recently we went back for a family wedding and had a wonderful time catching up with everyone. We stopped by Sea World on the way and had one of the best days we’ve had as a family…thanks Shamu! We had some fun visits from friends and family as well. My Tennessee parents came out this fall and we had a ball going to Rawhide and walking to our local smoothie shop! Our friend Courtney came for visit that was fantastic….so much catching up from our Charlotte days! Sadly, for the first time since we moved out west (10 years ago), we did not go back east this year. The swim schedule had a lot to do with it and hopefully it was a one-time occurrence.

I write this note this year with lots of reflection and gratitude. Times are not always easy, as I only accent our yearly highlights. However, great family and friends make all occasions and circumstances worthwhile, and we are thankful for so many wonderful people in our lives! Have a blessed Christmas, a prosperous New Year!

Lot’s of Love to you and your family!!The Crawfords (Scott, Stephanie, Makenna, Riley, Kaydee and Lucy)