Dear Friends and Family,
Not only is another year about to end, but the decade is also drawing to a close. That can only mean one thing: it's time for us to publish our annual Rock family Christmas newsletter.
There were two big changes for us in 2009. The first is that we had a new addition to our family. Alexander Ashton Rock (Alex, for short) was born on April 18 of this year. He's healthy, happy and extremely active. He never sits still, always rolling around the floor or kicking his feet. (His footwork often evokes images of Irish step dancers. We think he will be ready to audition for Riverdance with just a little more practice.) Alex loves to examine and chew just about anything he can get his hands on---including Alyssa's cell phone, which he has nearly destroyed twice in the last month. But his favorite pasttime is definitely hero worship. He absolutely adores his older brother Ethan. To Alex, no one will ever be as funny, entertaining, or awe-inspiring as Ethan. He's happiest when he can just sit and observe his amazing brother at work. (Unfortunately, Ethan doesn't totally reciprocate these emotions. The most common request we get from Ethan is to put Alex down for a nap so he doesn't have to listen to his brother's annoying baby noises any more.) Here's a cute blog entry we devoted to Alex, if you'd like to see some cute videos and pictures: Alex 0.3.
Speaking of the devil, Ethan turned two years old back in April and has been a barrelful of crazy monkey fun all year long. This year he learned all his numbers and letters and has made great strides in his vocabulary. He also loves to go to the dinosaur museum at Thanksigiving Point and is actually getting good at identifying some of the different types of dinosaurs. A few months ago, he became obsessed with the video game Lego Star Wars and got amazingly good at playing it. As cool as it was to see him developing his fine motor skills, Alyssa didn't really want a little video game addict on her hands (or her conscience). But after months of trying to distract him away from the video game controller, he's finally grown a little bored with the game and is now more interested in playing with his toys down in the basement---much to Alyssa's relief. Earlier in the year, Ethan gave us all a scare when he was diagnosed as failing to thrive because he was underweight. We ran a battery of tests on him but they all came back normal. It turns out he just wasn't getting enough calories because he was so busy playing he didn't want to stop to eat. But we're finally having more success with his eating habits and he's been gradually putting on more weight. In every other respect, he seems like a perfectly healthy and happy kid.
The second big change for our family was that we bought our first house. A few weeks after Alex was born, we moved from our apartment in Orem to our new house in Springville. (We don't really recommend moving right after having a baby, by the way.) We enjoy having all the extra space and we love the ward/neighborhood we've moved into. On the day we moved in, many of our neighbors spontaneously came and helped us move in without even being asked. Our neighbors across the street later came and mowed our lawn for us. That has pretty much set the tone for the rest of our year here. We've been impressed with how friendly and giving our neighbors are. But we'd have to admit that the best part about our new neighborhood is that many of them are fellow board game enthusiasts. We get together with several of them twice a month to play some of our favorite board games. It can't get much better than that!
Chris has had another great year working as a web programmer for Eli Kirk. He gets a great deal of satisfaction from his work and gets along excellently with his co-workers. (Not to mention the fact that he won a iPod Touch in a trivia contest at the company Christmas party recently.) His company is doing well and he hopes this year will be just as good as the last one has been. In his spare time, Chris is busy inventing new recipes (come try his potato stew some time!), exploring the Internet and listening to some of his favorite podcasts. Some of Chris's favorite podcasts are:
Alyssa is still a full-time mom and a part-time writing instructor at Utah Valley University. Now that she's got most of the kinks ironed out of her curriculum, teaching has been a lot less stressful. But between taking care of the kids and her students, there is little room for much else. As a result, Alyssa's personal blog has fallen by the wayside. She's gone from writing once a week to writing once a month (or not writing at all, as has been the case the latter half of the year). And no, it's laughable to even think about asking her whether she makes it out to the movie theater very often. Fortunately, this year she's discovered some great film podcasts---so even though she hasn't seen many films, she can have a conversation about most of the new releases this year. Of the new releases she saw in the theater or on DVD this year, Alyssa recommends the following:
She also enjoyed the following films on DVD this year:
As this newsletter draws to a close, we hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season. Our hearts go out to all of you around this time of year.
Love,
The Rocks