We hope you have all had a wonderful 2010! We have had a great year, full of many changes. Almost all of the changes that happened to us this year are a result of Mom's decision to go to law school. Instead of sending out cards with Christmas letters, we decided to do a 2010 recap blog post.
Right at the end of 2009, Mom was accepted into the University of Virginia School of Law. Mom and Dad visited the school in January and while it was a hard decision for them, the fact that UVA is one of the best law schools in the country and since Mom was given a scholarship, Mom and Dad decided it would be the best thing for our family's future for her to move to Virginia for school instead of staying in Seattle for school. Since there are not a lot of jobs to be had with the economy the way it is, Mom and Dad were prepared for Steve and Kat to move to Virginia with Mom and Wilbur to stay in Seattle with Dad. Then something wonderful happened. Dad was offered a job in Maryland! While his job is three hours away from where we live and we don't get to live with Dad and Wilbur, but we do get to see him almost every weekend. It is way better for our entire family than if he lived on the other coast!
Steve and Kat had their first trip to a foreign land in February when we went to Vancouver during the Winter Olympics. We had a lot of fun attending a taping of the Colbert Report and seeing all the hustle and bustle of an Olympic city. Steve and Kat were very popular in Canada!
In addition to Mom going back to school, Steve and Kat also went to school and they both earned their Canine Good Citizen certificates. While Steve took two tries on the test item where Mom left his sight for three minutes, Kat passed on the first try.
Before we left the Pacific Northwest, we did some good old fashioned camping... in the rain, of course! Wilbur had his own ideas of how to camp.
At the end of July, we set off on our 3000 mile trip to move across the country. Dad only drove the last 1000 miles with us, but we had our Missouri grandma and Aunt Kari along for the first 2000 miles. We stopped at some great places including Mount Rushmore. In the middle of our trip, we spent several days at our Missouri grandparents' house where we went to the lake for the first time and learned to tube. Kat also got to meet her love connection, Thunder.
This fall has been spent adapting to apartment life once again. Mom has gotten in really good shape now that she has to run with Steve and Kat everyday. They tried to keep her life exciting and keep her from getting stressed out during her first semester of law school. They succeeded. Wilbur has proven to be a good study buddy for Mom when she needed it too.
We hope all of you have a great 2011 and we do as well, but next year, we don't want to ride in the car for 3000 miles!
Happy Holidays!
Steve, Kat, Wilbur, Mom, and Dad