Greetings! Here is how Christmas 2022 finds us:

Will: Seven years old and attending second grade at Eduprize charter school. Cute (if sometimes condescending) voice, huge vocabulary, and still has the whitest hair you ever did see. Ensconces himself in pillow forts on the regular. Good news for him: I have filled our house with a LOT of pillows. 

Foss: Ten years old and attending school at home + a homeschool enrichment program called Eagleridge. Scrappy, creative, and probably knows more about your local sports teams than you do. He had to wait for his big tenth birthday gift but it’s just around the corner now – courtside tickets at a Suns game – and he might actually die of happiness if he gets to high-five Devin Booker.

Cooper: Fifteen years old and a freshman at Gilbert High School. Hard-working, dry-humored, and definitely inherited his dad’s entrepreneurial spirit and persuasiveness. Case in point: He’s become a bonafide sneakerhead, and he’s persuaded the rest of us to up our footwear game too. The number of shoes in our house is now somewhere between “whoa, that’s a lot” and “you guys should stop.” 

Kiefer: Eighteen years old and a senior at Gilbert High School. Introspective and philosophical, he spent last summer working at Hume Lake and is chomping at the bit to go back. But for now, he’s working for his dear old dad at Showit, helping customers with tech support. Bonus for him: he’s found some kindred spirits there who appreciate the same books, shows, movies (esp. anime, these days) he does.

Elisa: Mom-of-four-boys years old and a homemaker in Gilbert, Arizona. Lover of words, warmth, and wit, I turned my pen to drawing as well as writing these last few months. When I lamented that we hadn’t taken a Christmas family picture yet this year, my mom suggested I draw one instead, and now here we are, all faceless and whimsical. (I tried drawing faces. They were…haunting).

Todd: Ruggedly handsome years old and running our software company Showit, which has grown to fifty employees. Also running Rivendale, our ranch in Show Low. (He’s rather good at running things.) Over the last year-and-a-half, Rivendale has hosted retreats for friends and family, for Showit, and for many other small groups, all while undergoing a great deal of upgrades and renovations. Todd doesn’t actually dress like a ranch hand while overseeing these things but he HAS discovered a deep and abiding love for tractors, particularly our excavator (which is rather more cumbersome to draw than a hat). 

All of us: We had the casita behind our house remodeled this year, and my mom moved into it about a month ago. In the midst of the sadness of missing my dad, it’s been a sweet gift to have more time with her. God continues to show us His kindness in such ways, reminding us to trust Him in our troubles and to praise Him in our joys.

We count all of you among our joys, and so we praise God for you. May your Christmas be blessed!