Christmas Letter 2023

     I missed last years Christmas Letter which has been my only annual update on this blog for too long! Before I miss this years I wanted to sit down and reflect on this past year as well as some of what we are looking forward to in 2024.

    The start of each year we tend to focus on school knowing that Spring brings warmer weather and more opportunities to be outdoors and adventuring. We continued with Gather Round Unit Studies and we are loving learning together. David has been doing his courses online and in September Angeline and Samara started their Science courses online as they get closer to grades 10 & 9. 

    I feel like our biggest news is that David is scheduled to graduate this June! I was trying to convince him to take his time and postpone grad a year but he is very motivated to finish "on time" and has been doing amazing with his heavy course load. Other big news for David is that he passed his Learners Drivers test and now has an "N." We were so proud that he passed first try but I'm not sure I was ready for him to take another step towards independence. He has spent the last 2 summers volunteering at Camp Bob and I believe that is his plan for this coming summer as well. Just like when he was a baby learning to roll over, crawl and then walk... I am feeling each progression to adulthood with a mixture of joy and sadness.

    Angeline, Samara and Rebekah worked on swimming lessons leading up to and through summer passing swimmer 6 with Rebekah and Angeline going on to pass Swimmer 7. They are currently waiting for Swimmer 8 to come up as an option at our local pool. Joshua made a lot of progress in swimming this year as well and was able to recently pass Swimmer 4. He is looking forward to Swimmer 5 in January. BIG news for Naomi is that she is finally actually tall enough to take Swimmer 1 (you have to be 3'9"... she is signed up for January. She only just managed to get out of her 5 point harness shortly before turning 7! I've used this line for her before but she continues to prove the saying that "good things come in small packages." The oldest 5 (and Jonathan) are all playing Badminton twice a week as well.

    I started working part-time in September as the Student Ministries Coordinator at our church. It has been a fun and challenging change. So thankful that Jon has been able to help more and more with homeschooling, especially MATH!

    Our summer highlights are the same things we look forward to every summer... mostly camping and time together at the lake. So thankful that we can spend so much time at the lake (my last swim was October 7th) ... can't wait to jump in again (but I will wait until May).

    I haven't sent cards out in years but we are thankful for those who have sent cards our way and we want to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed 2024.

Much Love,

the Neufelds

  

DRAFT- Christmas Letter 2021

*This is my Christmas Letter Draft for December 2021. I think it was the first year that I didn't blog a Christmas letter since I started when David was a baby. It's something I enjoy doing, even just as a way to summarize the year. I also didn't get 1 single Christmas Card out, which is something I also enjoy. I can say that I am busier than ever but I don't think that was it. Regardless I wanted to share my draft and wish you and yours a Happy 2022 and a Merry Christmas that lasts all year long. 

Much love, the Neufelds

     It's Christmas time! We are very happy to be heading into a more normal feeling Christmas, after experiencing quite a different, lonelier Covid Christmas last year. True, Covid is still part of our new reality but are heading into the season without restrictions and impending fines for gathering with loved ones during the holidays. 

    This year we have extra reasons to celebrate family as my brother, sister (in-law) and nephew moved to Port Alberni in the Spring. We have all been so happy to be able to get together with them on a more regular basis. It seems to have started a trend because Jonathan's parents and brother bought the house right next to us and moved in September so we now have parents/grandparents and a brother/uncle for neighbours! We count the blessing of family very high on our list and so just this news news alone has made 2021 a very blessed year.

    We continue to Homeschool our six children, Naomi started kindergarten in the fall so this is the first time officially educating 6 kids. For Grades 2-7 we are continuing to use the Gather Round Curriculum with the approach of learning the same unit study topics together and completing separate grade appropriate notebooks. In the new year we studied Oceans, Africa, Earth Science. Starting this school year we have learned about North America and we are just wrapping up a unit Study on the Human Body. In the New year we will be learning about South America... David is completing Grade 10 as online synchronous courses, most that have weekly class times on zoom. Naomi is working her way through Reading Eggs, completing fun phonetic learning games on an app and working on corresponding work pages.

    In other news David has just managed to grow taller than both Jonathan and I, that combined with my baby turning 5 has really hit me this season of life. They are all growing so much.