Season’s Greeting one and all!
As a special holiday treat we’re giving you a glimpse at the NUMBERS in our lives! If you spent the past 12 months with the Young Crew it would look something like this:
1 Family, 3 Kids, One 4 bedroom House with lots o’ LOVE!
2190 diaper changes! Thank you, Liam! And, thank you, Kaija for mastering potty training this year! What a big girl, we are so proud of you! We are waiting for this number to hit ZERO in the future. If you already know what that feels like then good for you, we’ll let you know when we can use a spare hand!
1095 meals for a family of 5 (5475 meals if you want to get technical), you can only imagine how many dishes this produces. And, with at least 365 dishwasher loads, we grow more and more thankful for this lovely machine each day!
12523 miles on 1 new mini-van, PEARL, as we call her. 1 tear-filled good bye to the Lexus SUV Kerri loved. This new, smooth ride is loaded with goodies and can comfortably seat 7. Equipped with 1 Navigation system (a must-have for Kerri’s real estate business), 1 DVD player and 4 wireless headsets!
2284 dollars spent for 8 days with MICKEY! Our first trip to Walt Disneyland was the last bit of April and early May. We have decided it REALLY IS the “Happiest Place on Earth”! We loved everything about it, including meeting the princesses, riding Dumbo and the tea cups, seeing the parades and just riding rides until we wore ourselves out! We were especially grateful for our “limo on wheels” our tandem double stroller that we figured out how to get 3 wiped-out kids on.
1 boy with 6 teeth turning 1! Liam had the BIG first birthday this year! We just can’t keep up with this tornado! He climbs everything, pushes barstools to get on counter tops and everything. Of course his adventures come with a price, he falls and trips and that doesn’t stop him. We joke that he needs to wear a helmet! Look what a BOY did to us!
2190 miles to Utah round trip to visit family and friends. We had to break in the mini-van somehow. Can you say ROAD-TRIP? July was a beautiful month for it. Enoch and I geared ourselves up for this event and prepared for the worst but we were pleasantly surprised with how well the kids did. Gotta love those troopers. We LOVED seeing family and several of Kerri’s friends from college and Estonia.
1 loop on the 2 wheeled handcart trekking around the field at Deseret Land and Livestock Ranch in Utah where Grandma and Grandpa Young were serving and leading Pioneer Treks. We saw at least 7 species of birds and 273 prairie dogs.
4 camping trips in our pop-up tent trailer. One of our favorites was to Sequim where were visited Olympic Game Farm , an open air park housing bears, elk, buffalo, etc. 1 enormous buffalo tongue to the van window and that was plenty for us. The kids will never forget it either!
65 days of Kindergarten. 1 BIG, yellow bus took Seraya off to school for her first day of kindergarten! She is loving school and doing very well. Her teacher claims “Seraya has a flair for the dramatic” and we couldn’t agree with her more! Her teacher said she is also very friendly and helpful to her classmates…we are so proud!
10 years of Marital BLISS for Enoch and Kerri! We celebrated with 3 nights in VEGAS! We had fun seeing, “Mamma Mia” live, and riding the roller coaster on top of New York, New York in the blazing 105 degree heat, and of course, drifting in the lazy river at our hotel pool.
8.5 hours in the van got us to Hood River, Oregon for Thanksgiving. Hello traffic, it should have taken 3.5! We were thankful to get there after all and had a fabulous time with family.
One 6 foot snowman was made on the first day of snow. The kids were up at the crack of dawn yelling that they wanted to play in the snow! I think we were done with the snowman and all the snowballs anyone could handle by 10 am. Then it was hot chocolate by the fire and mama’s home-made French toast on the griddle. Ahhhhhh, what says Happy Holidays better than that?
From our home to yours: wishes for a Merry Christmas and 365 days of fun in 2009!
Love,
The Youngs
Enoch, Kerri, Seraya (5), Kaija (3) and Liam (17 mo)
