Christmas Letter 2014
Geez I can't believe 2014 already came and went. This year has seriously flown by. I think a large part of that is due to sleep deprivation! This is our first time doing a Christmas letter as a family! Our first year of marriage we were newly weds and I was scrambling to send out wedding thank yous instead of Christmas cards. Last year Connor was due and a very-pregnant-me didn't have the energy to try to make Christmas cards happen on top of getting ready for Connor. We decided to put the letter on our blog for two reasons: it's easier than printing off this letter 75 times and stuffing them into envelopes, and because now you know this blog exists and can check in on us throughout the year! Woo hoo!
2014 has been a really good year to our little family. We came into January 2014 with a just under one month old baby Connor. It's been crazy to watch him grow into the sweet, studious, happy little one year old that we have today. He's been such a joy and has brought so much happiness into our lives. Sleep-deprived happiness. He's healthy, has all his shots, and is completely on track developmentally. He's skinny and tall for his age - but given who is father is, that's not too surprising.
Dave is still at Microsoft working on the Office team under the OneDrive for Business umbrella. He loves his job and the projects he works on which is such a huge blessing for us as a family. As a stay at home mom it is extremely encouraging and relieving to know that my husband who works so hard everyday so I can stay home with Connor actually enjoys what he does. In fact, He even got his own office with a window this last month! Pretty exciting.
I have started doing free-lance graphic and web design and have been blown away by the amount of work I've found. It's wonderful to be able to set my own schedule, work from home, choose my projects, and use my design talents/degree. It's also been nice to have a little extra income to help pay for fun things like our Christmas trip to Michigan or my new work computer! I love it.
The Evatt family (my side) is doing well. Jon (my little brother) graduated from Washington State University with an Engineering degree. We're all super proud of him. He's working for Sierra Construction Company in Woodinville, WA. My parents finally fulfilled a lifelong dream of purchasing land in Chelan, WA to build our family cabin!! We have been talking about this for years so we're all having a blast drawing up cabin designs and dreaming about teaching the grandbabies how to ski.
The Retterath family (Dave's side) is also doing well! Zach (Dave's little brother) and Kara have been married for 5 months now! Congrats guys! Their wedding was beautiful and we were so lucky to be apart of it. Luke (Dave's older brother) and his wife Greta are happily settled into Ann Arbor Michigan after an awesome job opportunity for Luke. Lindsey (Dave's older sister) is still completing her med interviews for her residency. Hopefully she'll come visit us soon and fall in love with Seattle and move out here once she graduates ;) Sorry GR family, we are trying to steal her.
Our little family is still enjoying our home in Sammamish, WA. We love our neighborhood and our neighbors and are really feeling well settled here. We have been attending Reach Church in Kirkland for a few months now and are loving it there. It's a nice small church with a great lead Pastor. It feels a bit like home church and it's a nice breath of fresh air.
Well 2014 is almost over - our last adventures of the year will be flying to Michigan to enjoy Christmas with the Retterath family. We'll post updates here of the trip of course! Sending our love and prayers your way and hoping you have a wonderful New Years. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
-Dave, Leanna, & Connor