Here is our Christmas letters to our family and friends. It will serve as an update for my blog.
Do you ever ask yourself when you get Christmas letters from your family or friends, if this is really the same family you know in real life? Or perhaps you wonder why everyone else's life seems to run so smoothly around the time Christmas letters are written, when your life resembles Norad on DEFCON 2? I know I ask myself that sometimes. In the last few years, I haven't even bothered to write a letter, simply because our challenges were so fast and frequent, that writing about them, would have taken us away from the tasks at hand. (But don't worry, this letter won't be depressing.)
Sometimes we feel like tennis players on the court facing a ball gun machine, that has been turned to superspeed and we have to swing the racket or run for cover. Although we have certainly sustained some bruises from the baragge of ammunition flying at us, we hold our ground and are getting rather good at handling a racket.
This year was a trouble-some, travel-some, and awe-some year. We learned much about ourselves, and are practicing gratitude for our crazy journey through life with three of our men having ADHD, and 1.5 autism. Rather than tell you all the medical diagnosis we either knew of or received this year, I have added up the letters of the combined diagnosis of our family.
AAAAAAAAA CCC DDDDDDDDDDDD
The person who emails me back with the funniest poem or sentence using those letters will receive a chocolate treat from Belgium. What can I say, I spend a lot of time schlepping everyone to the doctor, therapists, and psychologists. So much so that it became necessary for me to take a serious vacation from being a mother and wife just to replenish the well. And what better place to do that then with singers in Berlin. I attended a workshop that reunited me with some very dear long-time friends from back in the day in New York, and many wonderful new ones. Twelve days all to myself, just to sing. It was so much fun. I had given up on singing all together in light of the pressing need my family had for me, but to my delight I discovered that giving my voice a three year rest, made it come back full force. I am again enjoying working on repertoire, and who knows...I might even chance an audition or two.
Now that you can be certain that this letter is in fact from a real-life family, who walks through the trenches, let me tell you some of the highs of this year. Where there is pain there is also joy, and we've had much of it this year, getting to visit good friends and family while exploring beautiful places.
Aaron has entered the final stages of his PhD and is now writing his thesis. With the help of Dr.Earnest from the Amen Clinic in Seattle, as well as a counselor at his work, he has been able to make great progress in managing the effects of depression and ADD. He taught several courses and published two papers. He is on track to graduate end of July this coming year.
Ezra is our precious weed. He grows mentally and also physically no matter how rough the circumstances. He is making progress in his own time. For the most part he likes going to school and has learned Dutch very quickly. We are very lucky and grateful to his special needs school who accommodates his need for silence and a very low distraction environment when working. He continues to challenge and amaze us. It is safe to say that he teaches us much more than we could ever teach him. His son-rise program experienced a lull after our dear Leonie left, but has picked up again with the addition of two wonderful team workers.
Micah is our adorable clown. He just spreads love wherever he goes, showering us with hugs, kisses, and "I love you"'s. He is very sharp and has a thirst for knowledge, which stands a bit in contradiction to his conviction that he in fact DOES know everything, and should be put in charge. We lovingly call him our bossy midget.
This year was a year of travel. Some of the places we visited:
Istanbul, London, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Finland, Seattle WA, Auburn WA, Olympic Peninsula, Houston TX space center, and Austin TX.
The most wonderful highlight was certainly attending the wedding of my brother in Switzerland.
As for our plans for this coming year: finish Aaron's PHD, and then see where we want to live. We've narrowed it down to two continents Europe or America. Some of the options are for cities with high concentration of jobs for Aaron, Bay Area, CA, Seattle area WA, NY area, London, UK, Berlin, or Amsterdam area. But who knows where we will end up!
We love you all, and wish you all a wonderful 2013.
