Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas from the Dalkes (Post 1 of 9)

Dear friends and family,

I have to laugh at how long this portion of the Christmas cards/letter takes.  The postcards sat stamped and addressed for weeks while waiting for the accompanying letter to appear on the blog.  However, it is finally done.  Woo hoo!

This year was a busy one for sure.  Mike is still at CSG in the same position.  He was able to get two deer this Fall.  Shae is still the Chief Home Officer and chases the kids all over town.  Ethan is in 4th grade and still loves football.  Eric is in 2nd grade and still brings some welcome levity to the rest of our serious family with his jokes.  Haven is in her last year of preschool and keeps Mom busy at home.  Trixie is now 2 1/2 and lives to hunt and hang out with the family.  She's really turning into a very sweet and many times even calm (who would have thought it possible) dog.  She still has a 6 1/2 foot vertical jump though.  Beware to all birds in our yard.  She catches them out of the air.

The boys keep busy with manly things like fishing, camping, martial arts, learning to sail, and playing Flag Football in the Fall.  Mike coached Ethan's team again, and Haven joined the ranks as a cheerleader.  Haven also loves her dance classes.  The kids also keep busy with things like swim lessons, church camp, VBS, and AWANA.

We all went to a Lancers hockey game this year, and Mike has a co-worker that plays for the Beef (indoor arena football) that also played in the NFL so we were able to go to one of those games this year too.  We all love our local zoo, state parks, and taking Trixie training at the lakes within walking distance of the house.

Disney World was the big trip of the year and had been planned for starting 5 years ago. It takes that long to plan and learn all the tricks when you want to do it as cheaply as we did.  LOL!  We took 11 days to go to Florida over Fall break so starting mid-Octbober.  We had a lot of fun with a day at the beach, a day at Sea World, and a number of days at Disney World.  We went to all of the 4 main parks.  You'll see a few pics out of the thousands that we took on the different blog posts that make up this letter.  There are 9 posts total for a year in review.  You can click on any photo to see it larger.

We pray you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Blessings,
The Dalkes

 Lunch at Be Our Guest (Beast's Castle) in Magic Kingdom

 Riding Santa's sleigh at the Christmas shop

 Cinderella's Castle

 Getting ready to watch Philharmagic at Magic Kingdom

 Kids & Castle
 at Epcot our 1st Day waiting for the gates to open

 Meeting Mickey 1st thing at Epcot

Goofy!

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