Update

Instead of a Christmas letter, this is my solution... Probably so much more about the Miner family than you might want to know, but it's my memory so I don't have to remember all those details.

I tend to think in pictures, they say the brain thinks in pictures and our language skill are made up of descriptions of those pictures. I will skip the thousand words and just give you the highlights.

So here are the family highlights...


Come late July-early August, this will be our new home... Aaron was given a school assignment at the National Defense Intelligence College at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington DC. It's a pretty swanky assignment, it's a big honor to be selected and we will be happy to be back in the States. Aaron will be working with all the intelligence agencies and all branched of the military so he is pretty excited about a change in topics although I think he is already grieving the lose of flight hours.

We've narrowed down our housing decisions to
1. renting
2. Northern Virginia-probably the Alexandria area
3. a place with an extra room for family and friends-yep-you are on the list...

I think that is our biggest news this year. Aaron's been working at the wing level for the last year and a half. It's been stressful with very little thanks and very long hours and very little flying. We were all happy to have him more to the Group level and work as an Evaluator Pilot, note the word PILOT, so happy man again is he.

I am plugging away at lots of things. My Aunt Mary once said when you are a stay-at-home mom, they days are long but the years are short. I could not agree more with that. Our neighborhood is pretty great, we are walking distance to Sarah's school, 6 minutes door to door-or 2 minute drive when we are cutting it close. We are a 10 minute walk to the movie theater and indoor swimming pool. The base is like living in a small town, you get to know people really well. It's a little like those movies when the waiter is the cook, the mayor and the priest. Well, one person serves a lot of different rolls around here so it's surprising who show up do different jobs.

Sarah is in 1st grade and is close to seven years old. She is not a huge fan of school now that she realizes it's not like Kindergarten. Having said that, she is doing REALLY well. She is a reading fool and is really great at math. Reading-me, math-Aaron. She is so similar to Aaron, her temperament, her quietness, it's fun for me to watch 2 people I love relate to each other so easily.

Sophie is 3 and is the comedian of the family. She is loud, spunky, a total ham and is adorable- really, she won't allow us to call her anything other than "cute and adorable". We tried an off base preschool for her, but after a month of adjustment, she was all done. The days were long and the language barrier proved too much, so she is back home with us. Coming in January, she will get a start at ballet class. She is a dancer for sure, she love to move to the music and has a natural inclination for rhythm. We will see what comes of it.

So that's us in a nutshell. Feel free to look through past posts, it's like a kids book with lots of pictures and not a lot of writing. I guess I still relate to the world that way...