2011 Christmas Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

December 2011

Welcome to 2011 in the Spates household.

This year has been very busy.  The girls turned one in January.  They started walking, talking, eating and throwing solid foods.  We are both happy that they are also both communicating with 2-3 word sentences and are able to get their points across most of the time.  It has seemed that the terrible twos are starting a bit early so the next year should be even more fun.  Kaylee is into kitty cats and we have nicknamed her "bug" while Makenna likes babies, climbing and exploring so we call her "monkey".  They recently got a train set and are both into the "choo choo".

This year the girls have enjoyed going to our local YMCA.  We do swimming on the weekends or evenings so that we both can be there and the girls are fish in the water.  They also love going to infant gymnastics as they can play in the ball pit, swing on the giant swing and jump on the trampoline.  Sometimes we can't get Kaylee away from the swing the entire time. 

In June, Heather and her mom took the girls to a family reunion in Ontario Oregon.  The trip was about a 6 hours long by car and took around 10 hours to get down from her mom's house in Wenatchee WA.  Many stops and diaper changes later we finally made it down.  It was great to see Mom's side of the family and introduce them to the girls.  We also got to see areas that mom grew up in and reminisced about days gone by.

In July, Heather helped out with our church's Vacation Bible School program.  She helped co-lead a 1st & 2nd grade class. The theme was a tropical Luau.  At the end of the week the church held a Luau dinner for all the attendees.  We finally got to wear our matching outfits that we purchased for us and the (yet to be born) girls when we went to Hawaii in 2009. 

In October, we took the girls and did a week long trip to Victoria BC.  We drove over the border and took a British Columbia ferry to Vancouver Island.  While there, we went to the BC provincial museum, strolled along the shops, and visited the Butterfly Gardens near Victoria.  The girls loved seeing the butterflies and other animals in the Gardens and we spent hours there. We spent time at our timeshare and had fun maneuvering the double stroller around the old small buildings.  We drove up to Surrey BC and took the WA State ferry back home through the San Juan Islands.

Stephen is still working in Renton at Wizards of the Coast and loves working on game development.  He also continues working with the youth group at our church.

We both enjoyed acting for our church's murder mystery dinner theater fundraiser this last year.  Stephen played a version of Donald Trump and Heather played a hippie gal.  We are also practicing for this year's play that will be presented in March.

We still have Lacey the dog and Backster the cat.  Lacey doesn't like being around the girls much as she is getting older and Backster, if he feels like it, will let the girls pet him now and then.

Please check out our blog periodically as we will continue to post updates http://spatesfamily.blogspot.com/.  Also friend us on Facebook as we post pictures and video there often. Have a great new year!