2009 Smith Christmas Letter

Rant--Let me rant a moment. I have just completed about four hours of envelope processing. I only had to address 43 envelopes with my nifty Word mail merge option. Yeah, nifty. I use it once a year and it shows. But, now I have it conquered. I’m positive I’ll be able to remember how to do it next year.


Skin--You gotta love all the skin showing in our Christmas 2009 photo at Lava Hot Springs. It’s relaxing to wallow in the hot springs after Thanksgiving dinner. Our bloated bellies look like multicolored icebergs. In today’s milieu skin is where it’s at! Unfortunately, during our Perrine Bridge photo shoot we all weren’t looking as gorgeous, TIC (I made that up—means tongue in cheek.) But, you can scroll down to December 1st post for a slideshow of all the juicy pics.

Bob—What can I say about the man who keeps happy? He even watched Julie and Julia with me last night. I have been channeling Julia Child since August. I watched reruns of her cooking shows when I was a teenager. I laughed and laughed because she was so funny.

Well, back to Bob. Poor guy hasn’t been in a Diamond Star airplane (or any plane) for ages. Several of the flying services have downsized. He did try to burn down half of Kimberly, ID with his parents’ extra large burn pile this fall. Excitement was had by all. For himself he reads really boring stuff like Dark Sun about the making of the hydrogen bomb. He even read Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (OK, this read was a couple of decades ago.) Rarely, he gets me to read his books.



Karen—You get plenty of me throughout the entire letter. But, I did get a bunch of varicose veins fixed in my left leg and pelvis at the insurance company’s expense—YES! Now, how do I get them to pay for a tummy tuck. I know I really need it for medical purposes.

Aynie—is having as much fun as possible at BYU and still keeping up with her class schedule. Chem 105 is making her smart a bit. Oh yeah, she says she not interested in freshman guys. Guess she’s too mature;) She ran around Italy with the Utah Valley Youth Orchestra in July on a broken toe. Dr. Rogers operated on the toe in August and Ayn was in a brightly colored pink cast for the first six weeks of the semester. Tons of boys offered to help her with her books. How would it be?


Brad—can now drive other teens in the car. I was lucky to go with him during Homecoming before his six months was up. Nothin’ like having your mom on a date with you. Unfortunately for the kids, I get a kick out of it. Brad received a professional saxophone for Christmas. So far, he’s been practicing regularly. He’s getting ready for the next lacrosse season. Brad and Ayn faced off frequently over who gets the kid car. Brad usually wins because Ayn is “suppose” to be away at college.




Mark—wants to sell his Yamaha dirt bike. He’s growing out of the bike. Whoa, looks like he sold it. Craigslist is pretty nifty. He loves airsoft battles and Xbox. He made a great looking long board in woodworking class at Oak Canyon JHS. He's got a pretty good golf swing and Grandpa Hillyard has been coaching him. He's on the PG Viking HS LaCrosse team this coming spring. Bob says, “Mark likes to ‘tickle the dragon,’” the dragon being me. This happens especially during dinner clean up. Last night Brad was asking Mark how he gets away with it. Brad doesn’t realize Mark has frequently received a wetting by the dragon via the sink sprayer.


Shannon—is now 12 years old, a young woman. I’m lucky to be one of her advisors in Beehives. Patterson’s gym works her out twice a week. She tries to avoid practicing piano and violin, but Whitney is much better at this than Shan. She loves voice lessons from Lisa Harris, a talented mom in our ward. Shannon is singing “Santa Baby” (the Taylor Swift version) in her recital next week. Shan just finished reading Hunger Games. We both devoured it and Catching Fire. Shannon has moved out of her horse phase although she still really appreciates them. She ran a 5K, played on Lindon’s soccer team and swam on its swim team.



Whitney—is in her kitty phase. All she wanted for Christmas was a kitten till I nixed that. We already have two. Whitney is churning through the Warriors series (Cat clans wage war.) She’s read and reread the Wimpy Kid books. Whit’s attitude is similar to Bernard’s, the assistant elf to Santa, in The Santa Claus with Tim Allen. She is the boss and she knows it. She sketches wonderful Littlest Pet Shop© scenario’s using her large collection as models. She’s a night owl and a very picky eater. No wonder she is so thin. Although she could “climb the rope” in gymnastics, she decided to take a long recess from it unfortunately.



Daniel—is our Mr. Smiley, unless you won’t let him in your room to play. I like this guy and he likes me. He hugs me and kisses my cheek. He is the baby and very indulged. He has everything a seven year old could want. With five older brothers and sisters he has every Lego© set, transformer, Barbie©, Littlest Pet Shop© (He doesn’t play with these last two, unless forced or bribed.), DS© game, board game, bike, ball, dinosaur, or inline skates a kid could want. Daniel has checked out most of the dinosaur books & DVD’s in the library and now he is on his fifth or sixth go round of Orem’s selection.  This kid knows about the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and how to pronounce postosuchus.

Dreaded Smith Christmas Letter 2008

This is amazing. Now I completely understand how old ones can sit in a rocking chair all day and not get bored. Time is moving quickly. Thinking about time reminds me of Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time I read this year—mind you I read the newly ILLUSTRATED version. I dig picture books. If you like picture books, too, check out The Arrival by Tan at the nearest library. Don’t pass up the knitting book section and all those yummy books about yarn or the Twilight series by Meyers…. “Enough of you,” you say. OK. Here is a Brief History of Smith Time:

Bob—sold the airplane kit he was building. He had completed the wings and tail. He had become a champion riveter holstered with bucking bar and everything. His tutoring responsibilities had become overwhelming in addition to his full time work as a computer engineer/manager. Ayn and Brad pay homage to Bob nightly because of his rescuing them from drowning in physic, calculus, geometry and Algebra II homework. I don’t know how a normal family can achieve respectable grades without a live-in physics/math tutor and home computer systems engineer. You don’t need to feel sorry for Bob. His dreams have come true. The cash from the airplane sale was burning a hole in his hand and he promptly purchased a bullet bike, a 500 cc Kawasaki Ninja. Bob’s Mini Cooper is still cute as a bucket of puppies. Ayn runs off with it whenever possible.

Ayn—like I said, she keeps running off with the Mini. Most of the time she is not here. She’s always doing something, something other than her family chores. She’s at violin lessons, or piano, or babysitting Jennifer (a special needs gal), or volunteering at Timp hospital in the OB area. She’s at this choir concert or that orchestra concert or visiting this friend or texting, texting, texting. She never plays with me, humph. I guess I should mention she does mountain bike with Bob and I.

Brad—is growing facial hair, just barely. Mostly sideburns, but that’s a start. And, he’s driving with ME in the passenger seat. Most jazz band mornings we’re shooting the rapids of walkers, joggers and cyclists, tenor sax bumping around in the back seat. All of this in the December dark. I’m just thankful lacrosse hasn’t started. Brad is a well-padded goalie for the PG JV LaX team. Now, to get him to do the conditioning.

Mark—‘s dreams have come true. He purchased a like-new Yamaha TTR 125 dirt bike in October. He rides every day in the “dirt hill” area up the road from us. Mind you, it’s not on forest service land. Mark doesn’t have to pay homage to Bob, nightly, like the rest because he usually doesn’t need help with his classes. Mark has been mountain biking with Bob and I.

Shannon—‘s dreams have come true, too. She got her ears pierced on her October birthday. She is in the collecting more, and more, and more earrings phase. She wants to go see the Twilight movie with me. I think we’ll go to the dollar theater eventually. She is also in the “love horses” phase, still. She’s becoming fashion minded and cares about shoes. Horse books are her thing. Don’t say anything, but I’m giving her the Unicorns of Balinor Books 1-3 for Christmas.

Whitney—‘s dreams haven’t come true, however. She doesn’t have any, she says. It’s hard finding jeans to fit this tiny-butted, long-legged girl. She didn’t inherit her body type from me. She writes magnificent love notes, hugs generously and draws beautifully. She avoids music practice at all costs both on the violin and piano. She collects, organizes and sets up.

Daniel—‘s dream would come true if he could go to Hawaii and see an erupting volcano. He is simultaneously in the volcano and dinosaur phase. He recently asked me which day we get to leave for Hawaii. Then we had a talk about $$ and $$ and $$. Daniel did love the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. For his November 25th birthday we had a dinosaur fest.

Dolores—the cat is fine.

Major Tom—the cat is fine.

Baby, Chocolate and Tippy—the rats are fine.

Steve—the parakeet is fine.

Zena, jungle princess—the Americana hen is fine.

Hope you all are doin’ fine, too.

You made it to The End.