Dec. 14, 2016
Dear Friends and Family,
It’s
always fun to reflect on the past year and look forward to the coming year.
After years of adding to our family, we’re now in the dwindling phase, as our
kids keep growing up and leaving home. It’s funny to think that if we hadn’t
added the second batch of kids to our family, we’d be empty nesters next year.
But, thankfully, our nest will be full, active, and lively for at least 10 more
years! And, of course, the fledgling, older children keep swooping by and dropping
in, so it never really gets dull around here.
Here are some of the highlights
of our year, in chronological order:
·
We started the year off with lots of
home improvement projects. We remodeled the kitchen with new counters,
backsplash, and lots of paint! I also got quite ambitious and reupholstered our
two large sofas all by myself (and, yes, I’m just a little proud of that fact).
·
Of course, the highlight of the year was
Michaela’s return from the Germany Frankfurt Mission in March. After being separated
for 18 months, it sure felt good to hug her and have her in our home again.
·
We had all of Karl’s siblings at our
house in May for a special memorial service for his mother, Sandra, who passed
away last year. It was a wonderful time to reconnect and honor a great lady.
·
To celebrate Michaela’s return, we took
a family trip to Disneyland. We also had a wonderful visit with Grandma and
Grandpa Shurts in California.
·
For 6 weeks, this summer, we had a darling
visitor, Klara Schulz, from Germany. She got quite the introduction to life in
a big family with all of our crazy activities and trips.
·
The Price clan got together in July for
a very short, but very, very fun family reunion in Island Park, Idaho, near
Yellowstone. We really missed Krey’s family, who still lives in Perth,
Australia.
·
I took a quick trip to Utah at the end
of August to get Michaela and Kiana settled in at BYU. It’s so fun that our
womb-mates finally get to be college roommates!! (sorry for being so
punny). I also checked in with Ben, who
moved to Provo this year.
·
This fall brought two milestones: Kandra
started her senior year and Dallin passed his “year mark” on his mission in
Porto Alegre, Brazil.
·
Michaela and Kiana, along with good
friends Natalie and Greg Andrus, completely surprised us with a Thanksgiving
week visit. They secretly drove to Oregon, snuck into our house in the middle
of the night and then about gave us a heart-attack when they all walked into
the room. We love those kinds of surprises!
·
Karl returned the favor and surprised
Kiana the following week, by jumping out of her dorm closet. He had flown to
Utah to see her perform in “Christmas Around the World” with her BYU folk-dance
team.
·
We end the year with Clarissa and
Simon’s upcoming baptism. We’re excited to share the special occasion with
visits from Nina’s parents and all our Utah-young-adult children. And, of
course, we especially look forward to skyping our missionary, Dallin, on
Christmas Day!
Karl is
still working at Intel. At church, he’s in the stake young men’s presidency and
spent a lot of time planning a youth pioneer trek. I’m still working part-time
as a substitute teacher. I’m currently in the Relief Society presidency in our
ward and I work with some amazing women!
It’s
been a wonderful year. I love that we get to end each year by celebrating the
birth of our Lord. As we think of Him and center our lives on His teachings,
our hearts are filled with peace, love and joy. May each of us share in the
true Christmas Spirit that originates from the Savior of the world, namely, our
Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
Merry Christmas!
From The Shurts Family
The Shurts Kids:
Benjamin (24)
moved to Utah in April, where he is working as a security contractor. Over
the summer, he moved in with Karl’s sister’s family. They have been so gracious
and have given Ben a wonderful home-away-from-home. Ben plans on continuing
with his schooling next year at Utah Valley University. He hopes to study
business and/or computers. He has an entrepreneurial spark in him and dreams
of starting an online business. On the side, he loves to write music, do art
and graphic design and hang out with friends.
|
Michaela (22)
returned home from her mission in Frankfurt, Germany in March. She was at
home all spring and summer, working part-time as a classified substitute. In
the fall, she started up classes at BYU. Because of her many mission
experiences working with refugees in Germany, she decided to drastically change
her major from Corporate Event Planning to a double major in Middle Eastern
and Arabic Studies with a minor in International Development. She absolutely
loves her Arabic class. And she also loves rooming with her twin! Both girls
are working part-time as security guards at the BYU Art Museum.
|
Kiana
(22) spent the summer as a nanny in New York City and the Hamptons. The
family she worked for had 3 homes, 11 children, 4 other nannies and a crazy
busy schedule. It was challenging and eye-opening, but she had an amazing
experience! Last Spring, Kiana finished all her prerequisites, applied for
and was admitted into the BYU Dietetics program! She is on a BYU Folk Dance Team
and performed in the Homecoming parade and the “Christmas Around the World”
production. She and Michaela are thrilled to be rooming together this year.
We love to hear about all their fun adventures and antics.
|
Dallin
(20) has been serving in the Brazil Porto Alegre North Mission since October
2015. He has served in Caxias do Sul, Bento Gonçalves, Torres and Osório. He
spends his days proselyting, teaching, and doing community service. He is
currently a zone leader, which means he also supervises several groups of
missionaries. His letters are always full of enthusiasm and excitement for
missionary work. He has honed his baking skills, particularly pie making, and
has taught quite a few Brazilian mamas how to bake pies. His email is dallin.shurts@myldsmail.net and
his blog is http://eldershurts.blogspot.com/
. He returns Oct 2017.
|
Kandra
(17) is finally a senior. Last spring, she threw javelin, shotput and discus in
track. This summer she stayed busy with 4-H, pioneer trek and girls camp. She
was in the youth camp presidency, which meant that she spent hours planning
and organizing camp details for over 200 girls. She does well in school and
is taking several AP and college classes. Kandra is an amazing artist and she
also loves to play the piano. She is responsible and capable, caring and
sweet. It’s been so fun to see our Kandra blossom into such a wonderful and
confident young woman. We will sure miss her next year, when she leaves for
college.
|
Jonathan
(9) is in third grade. He played soccer this year and just loved it. He has
enjoyed being a cub scout and especially loved cub camp. Nina still pulls him
and the twins out of school once a week to do “German School.” Jonathan loves
music. The three of them took piano last year. In the fall, they switched to
violin. It’s been fun hearing them practice together. Jonathan favorite
pastime is designing and drawing. He loves to build marble runs out of all
sorts of random household items. He loves to figure out how things work. He’s
a little engineer at heart. He’s a friendly, sweet, inquisitive boy.
|
Clarissa
(8) is in second grade. She and Simon like being in the same class together. Clarissa loves school. Between ballet,
soccer, and violin, she stays quite busy. She performed in the Nutcracker
earlier this month. She’s very excited about her upcoming baptism. Clarissa
knows how to handle crazy boys and is good at reminding her brothers to be
gentlemen. She loves animals, especially kittens (our cat had two litters of
kittens this year). She is a great friend to everyone she meets. Clarissa is
a sparkly, caring little girl and always wants everyone to be happy (and
good).
|
Simon
(8) is also in second grade. Jonathan, Clarissa and Simon are best friends
and do almost everything together. Simon made lots of friends at school this
year. Simon is our active, intense, athletic little boy. He absolutely loved
playing soccer this fall and looks forward to playing basketball next month.
We were surprised at how much he enjoys violin despite the fact that he has
to stand still to play! Otherwise, he’s constantly running, jumping, or climbing.
He caught the “cowboy bug” this year and turned into the cutest gun slinging,
lassoing buckaroo we’ve ever seen. He even talked Clarissa into being his
side-kick deputy.
|
