The 2010 Simons Christmas Letter

Hello Everybody,

It's been quite a year for us. If you've been reading the blog posts you already know about some of our adventures. Here are some highlights:

CHURCH

I'm starting with this section because, other than our families, I would say that this part of our lives has been the most important this year. We have felt welcome from the very beginning at Parker Hills Bible Fellowship and have already been given some great opportunities for ministry. Jim is teaching Adult Sunday school class right now and has been asked to lead a care group. I've helped with food-related activities, with my most recent project being the desserts for the adult Christmas party. I've also been given the opportunity to do some piano playing for services, something I had missed at our former church in DC, and am involved in teaching 5th and 6th grade Sunday school. Our pastor is young, energetic, and committed, and his sermons are excellent. (It's not every day that you hear references to Weird Al Yankovic in a theological framework.) We appreciate his emphasis on the sovereignty of God and have gotten to know lots of great people. The youth group is very active, with another young, energetic and committed leader. We consider ourselves very blessed to be there.

FAMILY

Our main reason for moving back here was to be closer to our families, and we love being able to spend time with them that's not bracketed by plane trips. (We were really glad this Christmas not to be involved in all the canceled flights that happened because of the storms in the rest of the country--and to be in wonderful Colorado where it was 50 degrees on Christmas Day.) Jim's father and stepmother are going strong, with church and square dancing a big part of their lives. We see them almost every week along with Jim's brother Ed, and we get together with my brother and sister-in-law a lot, too. We got to see all of my brother's kids (Gideon's only first cousins) at Cody's wedding this October. Jim's sister and brother-in-law made it out for a visit in August, which helped console us a little bit for their not being able to come for Christmas.

PETS

This is the last letter in which Lupita will appear, as we lost her on Memorial Day. We do miss her! She was such a great little character. I had so hoped that she would live long enough to see Gideon through high school, but that would have made her 18 years old. She did achieve age 16, which isn't too shabby, and then the side effects of her heart drugs caught up with her. Although I love dogs, I just can't see us starting over again with a new one (especially one that's not housebroken), and getting someone to take care of a dog when you're gone on vacation is a real pain. So, at least for now, we have the three cats, whom we love dearly but who are NOT DOGS. They provide lots of laughs with their various antics and some angst over snags and scratches. We're finally moving their litterboxes out of the laundry room now that the basement is finished.

GARDENING

We've actually had a much milder winter out here than Virginia did, so the big difference in gardening isn't so much temperature as WATERING. Virginia does tend to have a drought most summers and everyone's lawn dies, but we usually get plenty of moisture the other seasons. Colorado, on the other hand, doesn't have a reliable snow cover or ground freeze, so the main thing to remember is to water in the winter whenever the temperature gets to around 50 degrees. That's a hard habit to acquire, though. I'm afraid some of my new plantings aren't going to make it because I forgot to water them. We turned off the sprinkler system at the end of September and have had dry, mild weather pretty much ever since. I have hopes that the trees in the big front mulched area are going to make it through, and I may have caught the other things in time. We've gotten some fairly large projects done this year and have plenty more to do. I told Jim that in a decade or so we may have things the way we want them.

GIDEON

This year has been one of struggles and successes for Gideon. He has had trouble sleeping on and off since eighth grade after being a champion sleeper almost from birth. We finally got him into a sleep specialist who said his "circadian rhythm" was off and who recommended a biological clock reset. I must say, Gideon showed some great self-discipline in going through this process, which involved moving his bedtime later and later until he got into a normal schedule. He stayed up all night quite a few times, as we had to do the whole thing twice. But now he seems to be pretty well set, although we have to be very careful over the next few months to keep him on a pretty rigid bedtime. Next semester he'll have a very heavy roster of classes as he'll be going through some of the requirements for his International Baccalaureate diploma, so it'll be even more important than usual that he be able to function well in school. In spite of all this he's been active in various activites: youth group (with a missions trip this summer), game-making on the computer, and plenty of time hanging out with family. He and Jim haven't found a Tae Kwon Do studio to match the one back in Virginia, but they are going to make another effort in the new year.

JIM

Jim's activities show up throughout this letter, so I'll limit myself here to his job. We are very thankful for the opportunities he's had with his company/companies. Although he's never changed employment himself, the company has been changed for him a number of times over the years because of buyouts. He now works for L-3 Communications. He has great co-workers and is at work on a fascinating project. As he says, he just showed up at the last minute for the photo op. Working on government contracts can be a bit of a nailbiter as you wait to see if funding will come through (although that's true in the private sector as well), but things look favorable for next year. We say often that our provision is from God and not from the job, and we need to remember that whatever happens.

THE HOUSE

The house we had just closed on last December has now been through a fair number of projects. I have to laugh (a little) when I think that we bought this house partly because we thought it wouldn't need much done to it and then I look at what we have done to it. These items include: floor and deck refinishing, new carpeting, painting, new kitchen cabinet doors and drawers, new drapes, new furniture, new windows, and basement finishing. That last item has been the biggest headache, as we were very inexperienced (actually unexperienced) in the areas of building permits and contractor licensing. Now that we know all this stuff we'll never use it again--I hope. But it's almost done and looks great. A little drywall repair, some touchup painting and the carpeting, and we'll be done. Nothing is ever as simple as you think it will be! Probably one of our lowest points occurred when we were told that the window well for the egress window was too small--that it had to be extended a full 12 inches further. This change involved massive dirt digging, cutting out part of the deck, and moving a support beam. What a pain! I was glad someone else was doing that. But we've worked as a family on painting the basement (for which Jim stayed up all night) and sealing the deck, along with the yard work. We have already had several overnight guests and hosted many get-togethers, including an open house in November. We deliberately went ahead and invited people over even when things were still in disarray, as we knew that otherwise we'd be out of the loop for a long time. People were very kind about the moving boxes, protective paper on the floors, and empty walls. We should soon be out of project mode and into maintenance mode.

TRAVEL

Our big trip this summer grew out of Gideon's desire to attend the youth retreat at our former church in DC. I said, "But I want to go on a trip, too!" So Jim and I ended up folllowing Gideon out to DC and meeting up with him, doing some visiting in the area, and then heading for New York City and the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. If you'd like a more detailed trip description read my previous post: "Our Wonderful New York Vacation." And it was truly wonderful. I would love to visit NYC again sometime. When I look back over the years of our marriage, and especially the years since Gideon was born, it's our big family trips that stand out. Next summer will be our last before Gideon graduates from high school, so there's a big change coming. I'm so glad we've taken advantage of the time we've had. In keeping with our having a high school junior in the house we made a college visit in October, combining a trip to Cedarville University in Ohio with several days in Chicago. Our friends the Gollmers put us up in Cedarville and we stayed in one of our signature ratty-but-nice hotels in Chicago. Both places were great fun. I don't know what Gideon will decide about college, but this trip at least gave him some things to think about.

BOOK OF THE YEAR

I can't close this letter without mentioning a book that has truly been life changing for Jim and me: The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. As I've said many times about this book, it isn't a Christian book but it is truly Biblical in many of its ideas. As the book makes clear, happiness isn't a matter of self-indulgence but of self-discipline. I was so pleased when our book group at church voted to read THP for its current choice. We've been having great discussions as we've worked our way through it. Jim and I both plan to launch happiness projects of our own in the new year, and I plan to post entries on this blog about my progress. Do get hold of a copy of this book and read it for yourself.

Well, that about wraps it up. I'm looking forward to doing some part-time teaching in the new year at an ESOL school that ministers to Russian immigrants. I did some substitute teaching there this fall and enjoyed my class greatly--and they seemed to enjoy me, too. I look forward to continuing on with ministries at our church, attending Community Bible Study, singing in the Parker Chorale, and getting on with my writing. We hope you have a great year, too. Come and see us!

Debi, Jim, Gideon, Dorrie (El Doro the Magnificent), Sandie (El Sando the Great), and Smoggy