Dear Friends and Family,
We hope this letter finds you all happy and well. It has been a year of exciting changes for our family. While it was hard to leave family and friends behind, we are happy to be celebrating this Christmas season in our home in South Florida. Vernon was excited to accept a position as an English professor at Florida International University this fall after completing his PhD at ASU this summer. We are glad to be done with the student life and are enjoying the struggles and blessings of home ownership (you can see pictures here in our blog, below).
We are living in Davie, FL, which is a nice quiet community about 1 hour north of Miami and about 15 minutes from the beach (right near the Fort Lauderdale Airport--so come see us some time!). We have wonderful neighbors, great co-workers, and many new friends, though we miss all of you we don't see often any longer. We love attending church with the Davie Ward, a wonderful and highly supportive and accepting ward family. Vernon is serving in the Young Men program at church and I serve in the Relief Society; we're each first counselors and enjoying what we do. I started a new job from home working with my sisters, which is such a blessing. I also enjoy staying home with our 2 fun and active boys.
Alanna is enjoying her new school, Silver Ridge, and is having a great 3rd grade year. She likes being a part of the book club at school and going to activity days at church. She was baptized the end of September and it was a wonderful day. She was glad that her Grandma and Grandpa Schaugaard could be with her to share the day.
Brennan turned 3 in September and he is learning and growing up so quickly. He loves to read and play games, especially anything with numbers and letters. He enjoys playing with Alanna when she is home from school and I think he is warming up the idea that Erik can be fun too. Brennan will be a sunbeam at church in January.
Erik is right behind his brother in everything he does, even though he just turned 1 in August. Give him another year and I think he will outweigh him! Erik is always on the go and loves to explore, which keeps us on our toes. He is a real sweetheart and loves to give hugs. He starts Nursery class at church in February--yeah!
The kids love to play with (and/or torture) the 2 kittens, Tara and Eevee, we adopted into our family in September. As we look back on this year we are so grateful for all of the blessings that we have, particularly to have such wonderful friends and family. We hope that you will all keep in touch even though we are far away.
We wish you each a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Love,
Vernon, Danielle, Alanna, Brennan, & Erik Dickson
5 comments:
Danielle, Vern and Fam: It's great to "see you" all again and read of how settled and happy you are in Florida. We miss you and it's sad to pass by your old house (already rented out) all the time. We're glad you're happy though and your kids are cute as always. Alanna did, indeed, look like an angel in her baptism dress--but we expected no less. All the best from ASU Poly and the Shumaker Family. Love and hugs!
Cute family! It's great to hear from you. Congratulations on finishing school.
Hey there! Glad to see that everything is going well for you guys. And congrats on leaving the ASU East lifestyle behind. Gotta love those houses, right? :)
I think you should post some pictures! We love to keep up with you, and I check your blog all the time, but no new pictures :(
We miss you! I saw a link to your blog on the Stone's blog, and it made me sad that I haven't kept in better touch. I hope all is well in Florida. We're in Queen Creek for the time being until Kent graduates in December. He's in the middle of interviewing for jobs; we'll see how it all goes.
I promise to be better at keeping in touch!
Kim
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