Have a Very Merry Christmas

Toward the beginning of this year, most of the dramatic events that took place were confined to Stephen's work. His boss sold the company last year and had subsequently resigned in November. There was still plenty of shuffling going on among the company officers during the first few months of 2007. Amid all the confusion, Stephen did manage to get a nice raise!

In the spring of this year, heavy work was under way to release a brand new version of WipeDrive and Stephen was already under the gun when the drama struck our home life. On May 31, Mallory's third birthday (she was turning two--her first birthday was the day she turned zero), Stephen got a call from his brother Marshall to say that Dad, who had already been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, was unconscious. It was only a couple of days later that Mom brought him home for hospice care. In the early afternoon on June 4, he died.

Thanks to Dad, June was really a wonderful month. We had some truly lovely experiences together as a family. All of Stephen's siblings had come to town, as well as many friends.

It wasn't many days after the funeral that we discovered that our family will be growing in size by about 67% next year. Jeana is pregnant with a girl due on Feburary 15. We intend to name her Eva Claire.

On July 1st, a new sort of adventure began for us. Fourteen-year-old Chiara Aulke, from Lohne, Germany, arrived. Early this year (we think it was in January), Jeana found out about a sort of foreign exchange program. The advertisement specifically mentioned Spain, which got us excited. But since no Spanish kids had actually signed up, we chose Chiara. We're glad we did.

On her first night with us, Chiara defeated both of us (quite soundly and repeatedly) at Rummikub. It was a few weeks before Stephen realized he could exact his revenge through Mastermind.

Having Chiara with us gave us a good excuse to do some sightseeing this summer. In August, we spent two nights in Moab, UT. Stephen had never been there before, and apparently Chiara had never stayed in a hotel before. It wasn't a fancy place by any means, but Chiara was impressed, both by the hotel, and of course by the scenery.

Also in August, we drove with Stephen's mom out to California to spend a little bit of time with Stephen's sister Laurie (and her family) in Sacramento, and to visit San Francisco and Santa Cruz. At the beach in Santa Cruz, Jeana and Chiara were very excited to have spotted some dolphins, and Stephen delighted himself skipping stones and trying to catch crabs.

Three days before Chiara left to go back to Germany, Stephen left the house for work in the morning, only to show up a few minutes later at the doorstep, doubled over with pain in his belly. None of us really had any idea what was going on except that the pain was incredible and Stephen's hands and feet started to go numb (we found out later that was from hyperventilation). Jeana dialed 911, Stephen (still in pain) gave her our address to relay to the emergency responder, and within a few minutes, the paramedics were at our door. They took Stephen's vital signs, concluded that he wasn't dying and offered to give him a ride in the ambulance to the hospital. We declined their kind (though surely expensive) offer and drove ourselves.

It turned out that Stephen needed a cholecystectomy. Since some of the younger children may not know exactly what that means, we will explain: Stephen needed to have his gall bladder removed. The surgery took place in September. Aside from the pain being gone, the only side effect Stephen has noticed is being unable to eat a very large meal without feeling a little bit sick. Stephen sees this as a guarantee that he will remain skinny for the rest of his days.

Still in August, Stephen decided to switch jobs. He was considering several options when his (now) boss told him (Stephen) to come work for him (Steve) at Sebo Marketing. Stephen started work at Sebo on October 1. Aside from missing a few good friends, Stephen has been very happy with the change.

Aside from Christmas coming up soon, the last really big event of this year was Stephen's thirty-first birthday (he turned thirty--his first birthday was the day he turned zero). Jeana bought tickets for us to go with Stephen's sister Sarah to a Billy Joel concert in Salt Lake, and she did a very good job of keeping it a secret. It was more fun than we thought it would be (and we thought it would be super-duper fun).

Throughout all of this excitement, Mallory has grown more and more delightful every day. She is learning bunches of new words (she learned "slippery" today as we were crossing an icy street). She likes to sing and to spin. And lately she asks for high fives. And best of all, she loves to sleep!

Jeana is still serving as the Primary President at church. She is still in love with PhotoShop and our printer. Every once in a while, she will post one of her digital scrapbook pages to her blog (http://ward-up.blogspot.com/).

We hope that this time of year finds you all doing well and achieving your wildest dreams (it helps to vote for Pedro). We are grateful for your friendship and look forward to staying in touch as the years continue to go by.

Love,
The Wards