Year in Review 2008 - And Keelie Pics

There's a brief year-end message below. If you want all of the details... just click through the archives of this blog. This is the alternative to those paper Family Christmas Letters.

First, a few pictures of Keelie! She likes playing in our backyard...

She likes telling Daddy a thing or two...

She likes playing with Shelby and Honey (the storied doll).

She likes wearing shades and making offers you can't refuse...

(The bear refused... and now look at him!)

She likes playing with her cousins Macon (pictured) and Blaine...

She likes dancing with Aunt Kirby and the singing snow man...

She is blessed to have all of her grandparens, aunts, uncles, and cousins nearby most of the time.

Okay.... if you must have a paper letter from us, print this update out and cut out the "letter" below...

=====CUT HERE=====

The Year in Review 2008

Greetings to you and your loved ones! What a year it has been.

I didn't change jobs. I still have one, thankfully.

Kori continues to be an excellent mother to Keelie, and thanks to our biggest news of this past year - our move into a house - she's also proving to be good at fix-up projects around the house. Getting the house was made possible by the settlement of the lawsuit we had been pursuing, plus the downturn in the market and our financial discipline. [NOTE: If you don't have our new address, e-mail us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com. Our old address was the one with the "G2" condo number.]

Keelie, going from sixth months to eighteen months, has grown and learned so much.

She also, thankfully, learned to take real naps. The move was good for her - giving her more room to play around. She's finally starting to talk verbally, having been able to say quite a bit in American Sign Language for a while now.

The only real trip we took this year was for Uncle Gary's funeral. That took us back to Illinois in June.

Since we all live in Anaheim, it has been only a matter of coordinating schedules to spend time with Kori's siblings and parents. We also try to make somewhat regular trips to Pasadena to see my siblings and parents, and sometimes they come to us. We even hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the first time (with a lot of help from our families).

Kori and Keelie have been to some meet-ups with other moms and toddlers, and every three months or so we make the monthly gathering of some former coworkers of mine.

One of the ways we're keeping in touch is via MySpace – but even more through Facebook (see the links in the right-hand column). I wonder if those sites will be superseded by something else by this time next year? Well, if you haven't done so yet, connect to us there anyway. Of course, you are also invited to write to us at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com to let us know how you are doing and what you've been up to.

We're enjoying our new home, and each other – and of course we continue to enjoy our families and friends. We just celebrated Christmas in Pasadena and Anaheim with family.

And finally... here's the family Christmas picture, where everyone looks good and is smiling happily and sincerely into the camera...

Thanks for reading and thanks for your love, friendship, and support throughout 2008. We hope you had a great Christmas. We look forward to 2009 and pray the New Year will be a great one for you, full of health, happiness, and His love.