Holiday Update 2009

This year the McFarlands went to Vienna again. We know, you've heard it all before, but from this end, that's all we can really manage. We don't enroll the kids in soccer; we don't attend BYU football games. We don't even get our car registration in on time. So that's what we did in 2009. Here is what the kids have been up to:

Madeline (11) has continued to grow without pause. She's 5"5' and says her goal is to make it to 6". She may well reach it! She is currently in her Aunt Betsy's class at Wasatch Elementary and loving it. She's involved with choir, still swims on the UVRays, and has continued violin. All of that, however, has taken a back seat to her afterschool Shakespeare classes. She and 13 other sixth graders (mostly girls) will be putting on Henry V next April. In preparation, she's read Hamlet, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry V. Her plot comprehension is astounding, but she confided "If I don't understand what's going on, it's usually a curse." She's become an independent student and a burgeoning babysitter.

Will (9) insists that "sosmic" is a word, as in "a sosmic blast". Despite the correction, cajoling and insistence of his parents, it remains in his personal dictionary. He just spent last Saturday at a birthday party where they went to Cabela's sportin' and huntin' emporium and attended a basketball game in the luxury box with shrimp and lobster. It showed him the sort of life he could have, and the one he's aiming for. He explained the other day that he wants to go to M.I.T. to design a better toaster oven. I told him that M.I.T. was a really ambitious goal; but the toaster oven? Not so much. He is involved with violin and scouts, and about to start skiing, but he lives for playing on the Wii, with Legos, and with friends. He's a hard worker at his homework and chores.

Sebastian (5) is the tallest kid in the first grade. Problem is, he's only a kindergartner. He manages to live up to the too-high expectations in nearly all areas of his life, though. He trekked up towers and ruins and through ice caves and down salt mines with the other kids and students this summer and loved it. He is reading and taking creative dance, and has started violin this year. Just last night I saw him in deep conversation with his best friend and an older man coming out of dance class. When they got in the car, they reported that the man looked like Hundertwasser so they told him so. He said "I don't know who that is. I'll have to look him up!" I'm trying to imagine what I'd think if two kindergartners came up and told me I looked like an Austrian modernist architect/designer/inventor. And I wonder what that man will think when he finds out Hundertwasser used to strip down naked "to protest rationality in architecture"! Sebastian is still a gentle soul and a great companion on errands.

Josiah (18 mos.) has just entered nursery at church (cue the hallelujah chorus)! He does everything he should and shouldn't at this age, but that isn't enough for him. He wants to do everything that his siblings do: sit on stools, use glass dishes, and eat with a spoon. He lives for Thomas the Tank Engine. He entertains us all with his dancing, kisses, prayers and enthusiasm.

Rob and MA are so grateful to be alive, healthy, employed and solvent this year. Though that's more than our share, we had a wonderful time sneaking off to museums for dates and visiting Spain for the first time since MA's mission. We are excited to be celebrating Christ's birth once again. We're also thankful that we were able to see so many of you on at home or away visits. We are so happy to have you in our lives and we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful 2010.