BRINGING YOU EVERYTHING THAT WOULDN’T FIT ON THE BACK OF OUR CHRISTMAS CARD! 

When we sat down to write about the memories from the past year, we realized we couldn’t fit them all on the back of a card, so we hope you enjoy this digital version of the back of our Christmas card!

Looking back, 2021 has been an incredibly challenging, yet rewarding year for our family. As we started looking through pictures from this year, we came to the realization that we’ve actually accomplished quite a bit!

Thank you for being a part of our family’s life, no matter what that may look like. We are thankful to have so many good friends and family in our lives to help us grow as parents and help teach our girls about life in community.

The Girls
The girls are so much fun to be around. We’re surprised every day by what they learn and what they have accomplished.

Elin (7) is in first grade. It’s not an understatement to say that Elin LOVES school. She’s formed many good friendships with her classmates and loves her teacher so much that she pretends to be Halle’s teacher at home. That usually ends well! (note the strong sarcasm)

Carl and Elin recently joined a group of E’s classmates in a Y Guides Crew, where she is known as the Flying Flamingo, and Carl is the Flying Pigeon. Elin got to pick out the names.

Elin’s imagination constantly surprises us. She enjoys art, plays the piano, and this year she added theater classes and ice skating lessons to the extra curricular activities.

Through her work in a voice acting class, Elin has had the opportunity to record two commercial voice overs for Marbles Kids Museum. You can see one of them here:

In April, we celebrated Halle’s fourth birthday at our house with family. While Halle loves looking up to Elin for inspiration and direction, she is certainly forging her own path. 

We had an unfortunate hiccup with Halle’s school this year. Due to staffing shortages (revealed by a COVID-19 pandemic), Halle’s daycare closed indefinitely. Fortunately, God provided us the last spot in a church preschool program just down the street from us. She’s having a great pre-k year, and can’t wait to join Elin in school next year!

Halle is a fiery one…one minute its rainbows and unicorns, and the next is shouting and crocodile tears. She definitely keeps us on our toes!

While Halle has also become interested in learning how to ice skate, she stayed active with gymnastics and soccer this year. Halle is an independent girl and we appreciate how she challenges us to be more patient parents!

Carl’s Year
Carl completed his 13th year with On Location, and had the opportunity to go to the Ryder Cup in September — an event he hadn’t attended before.

But, the most defining event of this year was losing Carl’s mom to stage 4 cervical cancer on March 30.

Carl and Eric had the opportunity to travel to The Villages and help care for her in her final two weeks. In May, we held a memorial service for her in Florida. We’ve spent much of the year looking back at pictures and recalling memories. There’s been lots of tears, but also lots of smiles and laughter. 

As many of you remember, in 2019, Jennifer had the opportunity to travel with First Descents (FD), a nonprofit that provides adventure travel for people diagnosed with cancer before 40. As an alum of the program, she was able to nominate her caregiver to go on his own trip this year!

After being a cancer caregiver to TWO women, no one was more deserving than Carl to get to go on his own solo adventure vacation.

In November, FD selected Carl to go on a surfing trip in Santa Barbara, California. He had a lot of fun — he even made the news!

Jennifer’s Big News
Jennifer wrapped up her work with the Kay Yow Cancer Fund in May and was able to take some downtime over the summer to spend time with the girls, be a part-time lawyer, and serve as a volunteer at our church.

She also spent quite a bit of time considering next steps for her career.

You may remember that Jennifer worked at Chick-fil-A Falls Village & Capital Crossing in Raleigh from 2012 - 2014. She credits the role (and Chris and the team!) as being pivotal in changing how she viewed working day-to-day with people — both customers and co-workers.

It’s always been a dream to professionally reconnect with Chick-fil-A again, and, this summer, after some encouragement from her friend Katherine, Jennifer put her name in the hat for open positions on the marketing team with Chick-fil-A, Inc.

We’re excited to announce that, in October, after a lengthy interview process, Jennifer accepted a job with Chick-fil-A, Inc. as a marketing consultant. She’ll be working with Chick-fil-A owner/operators in the Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Central Pennsylvania regions.

Although she’ll maintain her North Carolina Bar license, she’ll no longer practice in the new year.

Thank you, again, for supporting our family. We are so grateful for your friendship!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!