Our Christmas Card

Greetings from Daniel, Karen and lil' Gus!

We didn't really plan ahead in our budget for mailing Christmas Cards out this year, but we do still want to wish all of you, our dear friends and family, a blessed and merry Christmas! Hopefully next year I'll be more on top of it! I hope you can still enjoy our digital Christmas card ☺

I also thought I'd include a sort of Christmas blog/newsletter update of our Bell family happens in 2010 in case you don't or haven't followed along with us this year here on our blog.

This year in May Dan finished his last semester on the University of Idaho campus. We had a hectic move during that semester, from our apartment with a crazy neighbor to my sister Shannon and her husband Mike's house. It was such a gift of them to rescue us like that! Then in June we packed up again and move up to Post Falls. We've been staying with my mother Susan in her new house and trying to earn our keep as much as we can with cooking, cleaning, and projects & what improvements you can make on an already new house. It's been really great!

Dan, in late August, began his student teaching at Lake City High School in Coeur D' Alene with his AMAZING former drama teacher and now mentor teacher Mrs. Sandy Seaton. He had a wonderful experience being immersed in hands on teaching and also really touching and impacting many of his students profoundly. Teaching truly is his calling! He just finished student teaching in December and walked in his Graduation Commencement Ceremony from the University of Idaho on December 11th. Wohoo! He is already applying for teaching jobs around the state.

Karen gave 110% of her time, love, and effort to ensure that Gus grew up in a loving home, Dan had food in his belly and a happy boy to come home to, and we were able to manage our money well enough to graduate without any student loans. She has the greatest job of being a stay at home Mom, working 16 hours a day for her family. There is so much more that she has done, even though she doesn't think she has accomplished very much this past year. She is incredible! (I didn't have anything to write about myself so Dan wrote this. Thanks Sweetie ♥)

Gus went from a 3 mo. old and mostly stationary infant to a rolling, sitting, crawling, cruising and then walking little toddler this year! This October he turned 1 and we had a great Choo Choo Train birthday party for him. It was such fun to have so many people come and share in our celebrating! Today he's a running and talking bundle of unpredictable fun and joy!

Thanks for reading and being a blessing in our lives! We hope you have a Merry Christmas and can feel in spirit of Christ this season as we celebrate that he was born and came to this earth to bless each and every one of us!

Love,

The Bells