2010 Christmas Letter

2010 Ginger Bread House

Greethings Family and Friends,

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and wish you a very Happy New Year in 2011! 

We know that 2010 has been great for some of you and sad for others, with the loss of family and friends - both to death and to divorce.  =(  We have had a mix.  Overall, I'd like to believe it was a good year even though not everything was good.  My motto is, we are not perfect but our Savior is.  Through Christ we can find the strength to get through difficult times.

We are on the road to ending our time in Germany and will be back in the States this coming year.  Our last full year in Germany has provided us some great opportunities to travel.  Last January we went to a marriage retreat in Heppenheim, Germany.  We took Caden on his first cruise with my parents in March and sailed the Eastern Mediterranean.  We visited Barcelona, and Malaga, Spain, Morocco (Casablanca and Agadir), Funchal, Portugal, and Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain.  We met up with our friends from the Ukraine in Prague for a short getaway.  We took a family vacation to Ireland.  We took Caden to Luxembourg.  Collin had some training and we took some leave to go to Texas for my sister's wedding.  For Thanksgiving we took a train to Paris.  A few weeks ago we went to a marriage retreat in Garmisch, Germany.  On the way we stopped in Reutte, Austria.  If you can't tell, we LOVE to travel.  We will certainly miss living in Germany and exploring Europe.  Thankfully we have been blessed with a lot of opportunities to travel.  I know our travel budget will decrease a lot once we return Stateside.

Some good news, we welcomed a new member to our family.  Kyle married my sister, Michelle, in October.  God answered my prayer and helped guide a family to choose our house to rent.  It's amazing how God answers prayers.  You know, I prayed that someone would sign a contract before January 1st and instead a family signed the papers and moved in before Christmas!  They literally looked at our house and wanted to move in less than a week.  (In case you didn't know, we had tenants who walked out on us).

Collin is still enjoying his job.  He also taught the youth group at church this past year and has preached, lead singing, helped serve communion, and has grown a lot spiritually.  Marisa's first and primary job is still taking care of Caden.  However, she has also started a part-time photography business, Heidelberg Photography, this past August and has had 11 photo shoots this year.  She has always wanted to do this and we are finally able to make it possible.  She is also still doing some freelance work.  Marisa has also grown spiritually and is a discussion group leader for her MOPS (Mother's of Preschoolers) group and is loving it. She is also active in her PWOC group (ladies' Bible study).  Caden is learning, growing, and is cute as ever. 

May the Lord bless each and everyone of you and yours!  We wish you and your family many blessings in 2011.  We hope and pray that your family is doing well.  Feel free to leave a comment, send us an email, message us on Facebook, or give us a call if we haven't heard from you in a while.  We love hearing from you.

Happy New Year!
Collin, Marisa, and Caden

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11