For those of you who might not of recieved our Christmas letter, I thought I'd post it.


11- 27-2006

Dear Family & Friends,

Merry Christmas to you all! Christmas is such a joyous time to celebrate Christ’s birth! We thank God for bringing us through the good times as well as the tough times this year. He has blessed us so much with family, friends, things, and most of all, a way to make Heaven our home through salvation!

“Alright, are you buckled up and ready to go? We are off to visit the Castle’s new home 5 miles north of town! Yes, they made another move this year and are getting accustomed to their new place. At least this move was not such a drastic one like last year (from Phoenix)! They moved out to a beautiful country home with about 1.4 acres in March of this year and have loved it! They do have close neighbors but are enjoying more space to work and play inside as well as outside. The fence they put up lets the kids and dogs play in the yard without having to worry about them running away. Oh, yeah, their house in town has been rented out to some great renters.

Just to catch you up on a little news from the year:

In June, they went with the Clifton family to Silver Dollar City and Celebration City in Branson, MO. They had a great time! Christopher was only 3, but he was tall enough to ride some of the big rides with an adult. Every ride he got off of, he’d say, “Let’s do it again!” One roller coaster he went on 6 times! Janette even got brave enough to try the HUGE roller coasters ONCE with Trint! The Clifton guys and Trint enjoyed the big ones and went several times, but Janette preferred the “Christopher-sized” rides! :-)

On June 28th, they had about 4 inches of rain in 1 hour mixed with hail. You can imagine what the hail did to the garden and talk about a COLD “lake” all over their whole yard! Then they had a week when it rained about 10 inches and found out they had a leak in their basement wall which flooded part of a room in the basement. They got in a lot of work by moving furniture (including a loaded down computer desk—not fun at all!), pulling up the carpet, cutting a hole in the sheetrock wall, digging a hole outside of the house (for a sump pump to get rid of the water before entering the house) and then patching the walls. There were large puddles that sat for days which killed a lot of garden plants and some spots of grass. The mosquito population sure multiplied by the millions! You couldn’t stand still for one second unless you wanted a dozen bites all over you—a real chore to get anything done outside! Itch, itch!

They have had quite a bit of company this year as well. On Memorial Day, they had a picnic that several church people and neighbors attended and had a real good time of eating, talking, and playing ping pong and a table game. After attending KSHA camp, Trint’s mom came to visit for a few days in August for Janette and Christopher’s birthdays. They had a small party that Janette’s parents and younger brothers were able to attend as well. In October, they had a total of 21 people for Sunday dinner when IBS trio came to the church.

This last weekend, they had a really good time with Janette’s family for Thanksgiving and Christmas presents. The cousins had a blast with each other and their uncles and didn’t want to go home! It was a lot of fun for all! They are now looking forward to a good time with some of Trint’s family for Christmas.

Well, here we are!! Oh, there are their dogs, Cocoa & Chloe. Now, let’s go inside and we’ll meet the family and visit a little while….”

“Welcome! Will you allow me to introduce ourselves, starting with myself? I am Janette—wife to a wonderful husband and mother to 2 precious, adorable & intelligent boys (at least a Mom can think so, don’t you?). Sometimes it seems like my calling in life is “work, work, work” but I’ve had a few breaks. I try to keep up with 3 guys as well as take care of our house. I planted a small garden this spring and had a descent harvest from it. I really enjoy my breaks of doing crafts, pictures, shopping, and playing with my guys. Also, once a week for 2 hours through October & November, I have been going to a painting class in town. I have painted 2 pictures and hope to get my third finished soon. It has given me a little time to enjoy doing something new & fun without having to worry about my boys (they stay home with Trint).

Now I have a quiz for you! Can you guess who this is and how old he is? He is quite the character, a big tease and shy part of the time, but outgoing when he gets to know you better. He also loves music, watching Blue’s Clues, drawing, playing in the sandbox, and riding on the see-saw outside. He loves to play with his brother and do anything that he does. His favorite song is “This Little Light of Mine” and knows all the actions. He also likes to do a few actions for other songs. Whenever he gets his hands dirty when eating, he asks for a napkin to wipe them. Another thing he likes to do is try to play games on the computer. Yep, it’s Blake who is 21 months old now. He is talking more all the time and can communicate very well with his own little “sign language” and sounds. The way he says, “I love you,” is by pointing to his eye, his chest and then to the person he loves!! It is so adorable! He loves to push buttons and play with phones and so for his first birthday cake, I made him a cell phone!

My oldest son is Christopher who had his 4th birthday in August. He has a great imagination and loves to play, draw (he does an excellent job), paint, do crafts with Mommy, play table & computer games, do “school” (he has some workbooks), make his own story books, and play with his friends Chad and Darrell (ages 13 & 11). He also likes to help Daddy & Mommy with whatever we are doing. When Mommy makes something on the computer, he wants to do the same thing and is quite good at making & drawing pictures with the computer card program we have. He started taking piano lessons in September and has already played a song for church. He is supposed to play “We Three Kings” for the Christmas service next Sunday. He is able to sing really well on tune now and has sung in church a few times. This year, he has memorized Psalm 100 and The Ten Commandments as well as other verses. He knows numbers up to 100 and can tell time with a digital clock. He also knows some of the phonetic sounds that letters make and tries to spell words by sounding out what he can! He told me the other day that he wanted to make his own computer game and wanted me to help him. I told him I don’t know how to program and that someday he could go to college to learn programming for computer games. He told me he wanted to go to college now and didn’t like the idea that he had to go through all the other grades first!

Next up is… (drum roll, please!) my loving, awesome husband, Trint. He is a great daddy who likes to do things with our boys. He has a great job working from home for JK Communications as a fiber optics design engineer. He has also been working some with our pastor who has his own construction company. They get along great and have a lot of fun working together. Trint still enjoys playing basketball during the week downtown, working on music, playing & recording his trumpet, and grilling outside when it is nice. He plays his trumpet in the city and college bands and has even composed his own orchestral song! He has completed another trumpet CD that he is selling. It is called “Silver Bells” and is a Christmas music CD selling for $15. Check out www.tcpplus.com for samples of his music and recordings that he has done as well as pictures of our family.

Okay, okay, I think I need to bring this to a close because I’m about to overload this paper as well as your brain and you need to get back home! Please feel free to stop in again! I love to have company over and love to hear from all of you! Our family would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!”

God bless you all,
Trint, Janette, Christopher & Blake