Miner Christmas Letter 2012

Here's a little "Merry Christmas" to the environment and people that could care less about what's going on with us- we opted for putting our Christmas letter online.  Thanks for going through the hassle.  We sleep better knowing our faces won't be stuffed in your recycling in a couple weeks.

Now for our annual humblebrag. 


Early 2012, friends and family came from all over to help celebrate Shawn's parents' 50th anniversary.  We tore the roof off the the Crown Point Community Center in Johnston, or as much as you can on Sunday afternoon.  Carolyn and Shawn also celebrated their 10th anniversary with a low-key night out in Des Moines with some of our original wedding party that reminded us that a February wedding in central Iowa is a horrible idea.  Of course, as all you married folks know, we continue to live life like it's one big Zales commerical. 

  
We are really lucky  for the Grozier family (Carolyn's aunt Susan, uncle Michael, and cousin Margot) as tour guides during our vacation to Los Angeles in July.  It was the kids' first flight, chance to see the ocean, and experience the magic of looking down your nose at others from the fast-pass line.  In addition to a couple days of Disney, Universal, we stayed on Manhattan Beach, spent a day on the Santa Monica Pier, and Carolyn and Shawn caught the Cirque de Soleil show Iris.

Our house has definitely gone through a transition as we started the screening process of such pre-tween shows like The Wizards of Waverly Place and Dog with a Blog.  Eight year old Allison's moving on from the days of Arthur and is growing into a really wonderful second grader.  She has become a great little reader, loves drawing and all sorts of other crafts.  Over the past year she's taken piano, dance, gymastics, played softball, and went to art and theater camp.  She's getting more teenage like every day walking around with iPod rocking out to all sorts of music of varying levels of appropriateness. 



Our family had a little guest this year as we babysat Skittles the guinea pig as test run for a pet.  Unfortuanately, the low maintenance little guy also proved to be pretty low enjoyment.  Despite six year old Claire's love of animals, we are a long ways off from buying a whatever-a-poo.  Claire loves kindergarten and when she's not in school, school comes to her with six kids from her grade living on our street.  Claire's our little songbird, whether it's singing Christmas carols or soulfully wailing every word to her favorite Goyte song.  Claire has been in dance, tumbling, soccer, little Ninjas, and cooking camp.  Claire's doing a great job learning to read and using her big heart change the school's disciplinary procedures after introducing "hugging it out" when two of her classmates get in a fight.  Now that's education reform.      

Three year old Sam has really put the "boy" in "boy, I hope he has an early bedtime tonight".  The typical youngest child, he walks around like his poop doesn't stink- either that or he's lost his sense of smell since he's still not potty-trained.  Sam loves cars, Curious George, getting laughs from all of us, and more cars.  Sam can be found at the child watch at the YMCA (playing with cars), at preschool a couple days a week (playing with cars) or just hanging out around the house (playing with cars... and punching his dad and sisters).  The debate over "nature vs nature" has finally been decided as Sam is proof beyond a doubt that that boys do really love getting concussions.

The parents went honky-tonkin' in Nashville as Carolyn won her first incentive trip as a Pampered Chef consultant.  While the trip to the Music City, some extra cash and some much-needed adult conversation has been great, Carolyn's primary job continues to working tirelessly of looking after the kids.  When she's not slinging melon-ballers, Carolyn has led a girlscout troop, helped with PTO, volunteered at the school, and enjoyed a little one-on-one time as Sam grows up.  She's had two trips to Minneapolis- one with Allison, Claire and friends and another with some of her sorority sisters. 

Well, Noveber sucked.  On top of Shawn creeps another year closer to forty, the jury's still out on which was more depressing and soul-sucking- the Iowa football season or the 2012 elections.  Shawn continues his career in the sexy, high-octane world of commercial property and casualty insurance (it's like Skyfall, except with actuaries) with SFM Insurance and earned his CPCU designation.  In a campaign to win hearts and minds in this house-divided, he took Allison to her first Iowa football game where she acted a lot more patient and mature than 99% of Iowa fans this year. 







As we look forward to 2013, we feel truly fortunate to have the people in our lives to share all the good and the bad.  Here's wishing you all the best this holiday season.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.


Carolyn, Shawn, Allison, Claire & Sam