Family Christmas Letter 2022

Merry Christmas Friends!

This year I discovered that the Hays family tartan basically looks like a Christmas tartan. So we are all sporting Christmas plaid this year for Christmas.

The big events of this year were our summer trip to Rocky Mountain National Park

… and the kids starting school in the Fall!

Doing both a big two-week National Park trip and having kids in school makes it clear that we have left the babies-days behind us and are entering big kid land. It’s great! First up, family adventures…

Family Adventures

Spring Break: North Carolina. For spring break we traveled to North Carolina

We drove to Durham, North Carolina for Spring break. We stayed with Evan’s best friend from childhood Jake and his wife Sophia and their son Rohan. We loved the early spring, the disc golf, and lots of time to chat with friends. We also saw four different sets of Wheaton friends who live in the area, several of them at the Duke Gardens with cherry trees in full bloom.

Amy and Evan’s 15th Anniversary: Lake Michigan Air B&B

For our 15th wedding Anniversary, we went to an Air BnB an hour north and a few blocks away from Lake Michigan and spent the day at one of our favorite parks: Kolher-Andrae. We ended up sick and needing to bring the kids, but it was still sweet. (For more of the story, you can read this post.)

Rocky Mountain National Park

Driving out past Denver to Rocky Mountain National Park was definitely the highlight of the year. We did six days of hiking, and saw lots of mountains and wildlife. It was awesome. (For lots of pictures and stories of each of our hikes check out this post.) We also got to see four sets of Wheaton/DC friends in Denver and Kansas City on the way. That was also amazing.

Door County

We also drove up north at the end of the summer. First we went to Door County and stayed at the beautiful cabin of one of Evan’s student’s family. We did lots of hiking and got cherries and went to a friend’s (amazing!) live production of The Three Musketeers. (For more pictures and stories of that trip, check out this post!) And then right before the summer ended we went up to my hometown of Amery, WI and saw some dear high school friends (Pictures of those are in my update section).

We have also gotten to have some fun family read-alouds this year. Our favorites have been: Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, Little Britches: Father and I were Ranchers by Ralph Moody, The Railway Children by E Nesbit, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, and The Father Brown Reader: Stories from Chesterton adapted by Nancy Carpentier Brown.

Liliana (age 4 1/2)

Lily is our sweet and spunky four year old. She loves all-day school and does great at it, but is really tired when she gets home. So it’s been a lot of big feelings and big melt downs at home, and making awesome friends and learning lots of things at school. Over the past three months, I think that she’s developed some stamina, and things are generally easier now on the average school day than they were at the beginning. She just got over a week of fever with a bad cold, and we are happy to have our girl back to full strength.

Lily is in 4K this year. She adores her teacher Miss C. And she’s best friends with little Hadley B. (Two Hadleys in her class.) Here they are on day one about to go into their classroom.

They had met at back to school night a few days before and have been pretty much inseparable ever since. I am so thankful that she has a sweet little friend and a great teacher. Here we are at Hadley B’s birthday (bouncy castle!). It was a flurry of birthday parties at the beginning of the year.

School has brought some fun new rhythms like Sunday night baths and hair braiding while watching Simple Spanish Songs or a bit of a family movie. Or doing “Kissing Hands” right before they leave for school (the week before school started we read the sweet picture book The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn).

Lily’s been a good soccer sister, going to cheer Jackson on at his games. It helps to have another great soccer little sister her own age: Aoife. (pronounced Eeffa. It’s Irish!)

And of course her cousins, especially Anika and Mia, are the rock stars of her life. We got to go apple picking again this year and spend Halloween and Thanksgiving together. It’s such a blessing to have them so close.

Lily’s favorite books right now are Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke, Kipper by Mick Inkpen, Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, McDuff by Rosemary Wells , You Can’t Take A Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and Robin Glasser, and the classic 1970s Mr. Men and Little Miss books by Roger Hargreaves. (Her favorite books also inspired this post I created 43 Great Picture Books for 3 Year Olds).

Jackson (age 7)

Jackson just turned seven! He loves playing board games (especially with Dad, but really with anyone he can rope into playing with him), soccer, reading, and generally having fun with friends and family.

He’s really coming along in piano, with Grandma Debbie and Mom for teachers, and he loves it when he passes a song and can play it easily. I think he is learning a lot about staying calm and working through hard things in the process.

Now that soccer is done, he is in swim lessons, and this January he is going to try playing indoor soccer. He is just a fun kid to be around most of the time! We love him so much.

Jackson has taken so well to school. He is in first grade. He particularly loves gym and Spanish. (Evan and Jackson nearly have a 500 day streak of doing Spanish Duolingo!)

Here Jackson is with his whole first grade class (there are just six of them!) being silly right before the Christmas Concert. Jackson told me later, “We were playing telephone. It was so funny. I thought of starting with ‘smelly blanket.’ It was great.”

Soccer friends! (above) & Cousins at Halloween! (below)

Jackson’s favorite book series that he has read year have been The Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne, The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney, Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol, Cam Jansen by David A. Adler, Detective Gordan by Ulf Nilsson, Amelia Bedelia Chapter Books by Herman Parish, and The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon.

Evan

Evan started his 8th year teaching social studies (and doing a lot of other things) at his school, CELA. This year was a year of lots of traveling for Evan, including something like 22 states and Washington DC. Partly, first, when we drove to and from North Carolina to visit Evan’s best friend Jake and family.

Then driving to and from Colorado for our epic family hiking vacation at Rocky Mountain National Park. And finally Evan also flew to Phoenix over the summer to pick up our second car (purchased from Amy’s parents), and drove it back over three days. This drive included a short stint in Oklahoma, so Evan only has Louisiana, Alaska, and Hawaii left out of 50 states.

All of our trips are happily punctuated by beautiful nature and connection with old friends. (Above here is our friend Danny who was in the middle of making the best meal we ate all year, really not exaggerating. And Below our DC Church of the Advent friends the Grammers)

Evan coached Jackson’s soccer team, the Tosa Crickets, again this fall, and really enjoyed seeing them become real soccer players this year. We managed to go undefeated on the fall season!

The other big change for this year for Evan was starting to take the kids to and from school. It is a blessing for him to have them there with him at school and see them thrive there.

Evan had another great reading year, including keeping his online book club going. He is still slowly working on his Reader’s Lectionary Project, and enjoying the little time he gets on it. And he says that “Thankfully, what extra time there has been has mainly gone to editing Amy’s chapters, which shows the progress she has been making.”

Evan’s favorite reads this year:

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, Once Upon a River: A Novel by Diane Setterfield, How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold, and Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono. (Also, Evan is very active on Good Reads and writes (in Amy’s opinion) really thoughtful reviews of the books he reads there.)

Amy

I have had a great year, seeing lots of friends and getting time this Fall to write more as the kids are in school. Much of the Spring and Summer was spent getting the kids ready for school: trying to figure out school lunches, teaching the kids to raise their hands to ask a question, and wondering if I had taught Jackson enough myself for when he got into the classroom. And for the most part, those things have gone well this Fall, and I am both glad that I got last year to keep Jackson home and do homeschool kindergarten, and glad that they are at school this year.

I’ve been able to write more! Evan was able to edit eight chapters this fall! (Of course, measuring writing work is tricky. I did lots of work leading up to the Fall that set me up for this. But still, it’s a big accomplishment.)

Of course, there are weeks like last week when I was taking care of a sick child and got no writing done. (Poor Lily had a fever for five days.) But I am glad that I can stop everything to be able to suddenly take care of a sick child, or make a major holiday happen, or generally still make the household run. (I also did a post this fall on the average November day that has lots of the little things that make up my day: Pictures of an Ordinary Day in November: One Day Hour by Hour 2022).

My other writing and bookish activities include: finishing my giant Newbery review project, writing other book blog posts, and volunteering in the CELA library on Wednesday afternoons. After over eight years, I finished reading the 101 books that have won the Newbery Award for children’s literature! I am glad that I did it, and probably more glad that it is done. Here is a wrap up post that sums up my thoughts After Reading All 101 Newbery Award Winning Books, Here Are My Favorites and another list of First Newbery Read-Alouds: 24 Books for Younger Children.

I also made a list of all of Lily’s books, 43 Great Picture Books for 3 Year Olds, which I have been drawing on myself as I get to read to the 3K class at Evan’s school on Wednesday afternoons. I also get to read to the first and second graders (Jackson!), the 5th graders, and teach the 8th grade students some library skills (Dewey Decimal system and the history of the index–actually super interesting!).

Usually, I get to see at least one friend for a walk during the week. I’ve been grateful that my friend Gwendolyn introduced me to her friend Natalie who also loves a scheduled walk. We have been Monday walk buddies. I’ve also been making friends at Wednesday morning Bible study at church. I’m very grateful for those ladies! And for our friends at Meadowbrook Church in general. We have been at the church for a year and half now, and especially appreciate how it is within walking distance and the wonderful preaching.

And now for some pictures of dear friends I got to see this year.

Danae my college friend we saw in Durham, NC. (I saw lots of other friends there too, but evidently we were too busy talking to take any pictures.)

And I’m grateful for my sweet best friend Kelli. We finally got to see each other this summer for a couple hours; it had been nearly three years. But we keep in touch most weeks on Maro Polo.

Here I am with my friend Sarah who just moved back to the Twin Cities. We got to see her in San Francisco, but are happy to have her and her wonderful family a bit closer now.

And my college roommate Diane who graciously hosted our family three different times in Kansas City.

My sister-in-law and dear friend Candace when we went apple picking this fall.

The whole Rogers crew at the apple orchard.

My Favorite Books of the year: The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ by Rowan Williams, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life Tish Harrison Warren, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God by Dallas Willard , Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace, The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale, and The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. (For all my favorites from last year check out 37 Books for My 37th Birthday: A 2021 Reading List. And I should have this year’s list up in a few weeks!)

We hope that we can see many of you in person this year, whether you are passing through Milwaukee or we get to come and visit you. We are planning to be back in Maryland/DC this summer again!

We hope that you are having a beautiful Advent and Christmastide and that the joy of Jesus coming to be with us washes over you afresh and that it strengthens you for the work you have ahead.

Merry Christmas & Lots of Love,