Christmas Letter 1 of 6 Posts

Dear Friends & Family,

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We hope you had a wondrous year. Ours flew by trying to keep up with the 3 munchkins, Mike’s work schedule, and all of our church activities. Also we said goodbye to our faithful friend, Dasha (our dog) in September. She was 11 years old. The kids took it pretty hard, but are looking forward to when Mom and Dad allow another puppy in the house (probably a few years away at this point).

Well, this is the long promised update to the blog in the form of our Christmas letter. There are 6 total posts with lots of pictures which you can click on to see larger. You may need to click on “Older Posts” at the bottom of each page to see all the posts. The last thing you should see is the boys in their judo gi’s. We hope you enjoy catching up on life with us!

Have a Blessed Christmas,

The Dalkes

Christmas Letter 2 of 6 Posts

Shae is still uber involved with the kids’ different schools and at church with choir, MOPS table leader, co-leader of our young families Sunday school class, and co-leader of our small group (which isn’t so small anymore at 38—16 adults & 22 little kids).

Shae & Haven

Mike & The Boys with Our Snowman Family

Eric the Knight, Ethan the King, and Haven the Princess (Belle) in the Kingdom of Basementdom. Funny thing is this represents each of our kids' personalities pretty well.

The Boys in their "Robot" costumes they made from boxes.

The Kids at Ethan's School Ball

Christmas Letter 3 of 6 Posts

Mike still enjoys hunting turkey and deer and is still a Manager of Systems Administration (computers) at CSG. He traveled to Denver more this year. One of the trips was during Spring Break so the rest of the family went to Branson with Shae’s family for the week.

at the park in Branson

at the park in Branson

at the Grand Village in Branson

the Kids on the 4th of July

Christmas Letter 4 of 6 Posts

During another of Mike's work trips, we all went with him including Shae’s niece, Kim—so it was 6 people to Colorado for 16 days. Whew, that was a lot of packing, but we had a nice time. Mike worked the first week, and then we were able to go on to Silverthorne which included Breckenridge founder’s days. The kids got to pan for gold, ride a donkey, practice their roping skills, and pet a wolf (well ½ wolf anyway). We also went to Estes Park/Rocky Mountain National Park and CO Springs where we took the Cog Railway up Pike’s Peak, played at Whit’s End at Focus on the Family, hiked at the Garden of the Gods, visited Glen Eyrie Castle, and ate at Solo’s Restaurant--known as the Airplane restaurant to the kids since you can eat inside a real airplane.

At Estes Park

Riding the Cog Railway up Pike's Peak

Hiking at the Garden of the Gods

Part of the Airplane Inside the Restaurant at Solo's. We ate in a booth inside the airplane. Fun for the kids.