2008 in Review

Since we don't send out a Christmas letter every year, we've decided to do a similar thing on our blog. 2008 has not been an uneventful year, it began with the closure of CP Steel in January, a decision that had been made earlier. Closing the shop after 7 years was difficult, many of the tools and machines were sold off. In February Chris started his new temporary job, welding at General Metal Fabrication. In the Spring he started his permanent position as Customer Service Representative at General Metal, a job he enjoys.

As I look back on the Spring, I can't beleive that Justin only learned to drive without training wheels this year. He's so good without them now it feels like he's been riding without them longer.

The summer brought swimming lessons, soccer, gardening and house painting. In Spring Nettie bought a family pass at the pool and we spent as much time as we could there over the Summer. Justin did his swimming lessons over the summer and greatly improved. When he began, he was a little nervous of getting his face wet, by the end of the summer he was jumping in without a life jacket on. We also did a bit of swimming in Altona and later in the Summer we went to Delta Beach North of Portage where the water stays shallow a long way in.

Nettie spent a bunch of her summer in the garden. We doubled the size of our garden this year which made for some great summertime stir frys. We had more than we could deal with, so at the end of the summer we filled our wagon up with the last of our corn on the cob, a few tomatoes and some peppers and found neighbours who would take them. It was a fun way to meet the neighbours.


It sounds sort of stupid to say that I spent my summer painting the house, but that's the truth. With all of the other stuff (not sure what it was now) that we had up this summer, I fought to get a few hours in at a time.


The fall began with Justin entering into Grade 1 and a new renovation project, new windows. We got half of our new windows in before the weather forced a hault to the work. Fall also saw the creation of a new Bible study group. We, along with Barb Klassen Nettie's sister Mary and Jim & Judy Wiebe's family began a study on the Book of John. It has been a challenge to all of us and we've had some really good discussion along with some wonderful desserts.


Kaitlyn has turned into a little lady this year. Kate loves to dress up and she loves to be pretty. Kate learned to drive a tricycle this spring and she likes an excuse to run. She's learned to speak very clearly, better than a lot of kids that are older than her.


Charity is developing quickly. In the past month, she's mastered walking and is now working on climbing. Though she's still small for her age, she's learning some of the sign language that the other kids know and she's starting to babble sentences to people. Every now and then she even says an identifiable word (we're her parents, of course they're on purpose).

2008 was a year of change for our family. God has blessed our family.