Christmas 2011
Dear Friends and Family,
2011 has been a very happy and full year for our family. Marked by the fulfillment of a lifetime dream for Trey and a job change for me, it has been a paradoxical blend of significant change and real settling down into our home. We traveled to DC for our annual Memorial Day trip and discovered it may be time to temporarily pause that tradition until certain little ones’ legs and stamina grow, now that the strollers have been long retired. We also flew the whole crew down to Atlanta to visit Trey’s family for 4th of July. What a pleasure to see all 9 cousins together, running around thick as thieves. Around the house, we continued to make steady improvements, repainting the entire upstairs and replanting the grass on the tree belt in front of our house.
Genevie started preschool this autumn at the church school behind our house. She goes along with Davis three mornings a week and has become a fast favorite for her irresistible “yoo-hoo’s” called down the hallway as she approaches her classroom each morning and her compassionate heart for fellow playmates who shed separation anxiety tears. While 2 has been a challenging year behaviorally (isn’t it always?), it seems that she’s rounded the worst corner and daylight is ahead. Genevie is a complex blend of girly attitude and tough no-nonsense. She loves her baby doll Meh-meh right alongside dinosaurs and airplanes. Her morning greetings are full of sunshine and her love of music has only been amplified by a recent parent-child music class we are taking together.
Davis, 4 years old, attends Pre-K three mornings a week and has grown academically beyond what I ever anticipated at such a young age. His aptitude and interest in reading means that he’s already starting to recognize small words and knows the sounds for most letters. His memory is also remarkable, and he can quote lengthy dialogs from favorite films without skipping a beat. His personality is enigmatic. He is both independent and reserved, which often manifests itself as shyness in public. He feels things very deeply but sometimes struggles to express them in words. I suspect he has a very poetic soul and is maybe an artist at heart. He loves to draw or construct things, and I can see his right-sided brain working in a realm beyond the rest of us. For both his and Addison’s 6-days-apart birthdays in February we took the boys to NYC to see Mary Poppins on Broadway, which they both loved.
Addison has had a wonderful year in first grade so far. After struggling a bit to focus on his reading and “put it all together” early in the school year, he has benefited from a one-on-one reading instructor who is following the Reading Recovery program with him. In just a few short weeks he has made tremendous progress, and we feel very privileged to be in a school district where he can get this kind of focused attention. He has gotten very tall, quickly outgrowing last year’s jeans and sleeves, and at 6 years old is truly a help around the house both with his younger siblings as well as with chores. He’s lost a number of teeth and now sports the hilarious, lop-sided grin of grade school children. This spring he played t-ball for the first time. We all enjoyed cheering him on at his quick, 3-inning games and shared more than a few laughs at the awkward fielding and the massive helmets sported by the little guys on the field. Next year we will have two playing baseball and so the juggling of extra-curriculars begins.
This June Trey’s long-awaited book, Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland 1545-1622, was published by E.J. Brill, Leiden, one the oldest and most prestigious academic publishers in Europe (established 1683). Needless to say, there was much celebrating in the Holloway house. It was the culmination of many years of painstaking research, writing, and re-writing and it was wonderful to celebrate its completion. Not surprisingly, Trey has already plunged into the next book, as well as doing some original translation of Melville’s writings. He has also been asked to contribute to a collection of essays on Reformed orthodoxy in Scotland to be published in 2013 and has continued to do occasional adjunct teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. For right now, though, he is able to enjoy the freedom to research and write unencumbered by the demands of an academic calendar. This spring and fall Trey flew down to Atlanta to spend time with his mom and siblings, enjoying a much-deserved respite from the rigors of daily life. Despite a disappointing end to the baseball season for his Braves, Trey quickly shook it off to follow this year’s impressive Clemson football team who won their championship and is now going to the Orange Bowl.
This year Trey and I celebrated my 30th birthday in January with our first night away since having three kids. We went to NYC, saw Wicked on Broadway, enjoyed fabulous dining and great shopping. We plan to repeat the visit the week after Christmas to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. The highlight of my year was starting a new position at another tech firm in Center City Philadelphia. I am one of two new Product Marketing Managers at iMANY, a contract and pricing management software company for Fortune 500 enterprises. The decision to leave my last employer was not an easy one but was necessary for my own career advancement. Despite the ailing economy, I sent out an initial batch of resumes to a few positions advertised online and heard back from my new company the very next day. Between the smoothness of the interviewing process and the generosity of the employment offer, God made it evident to us what the right decision was. I am so happy where I am now and am truly grateful for God’s abundant provision beyond what I could have ever dreamed possible. This year I also got to travel to some pretty amazing places for work, including St. Moritz and Zurich (Switzerland), Phoenix, New York, San Francisco, and San Jose. Next up is my very first trip to Las Vegas in January. In my spare time I’ve become an avid gardener, and while I continue knitting, it has taken a bit of a backseat to voracious reading. I’ve devoured more than 8,000 pages this year, joining a monthly reading group this past February that meets in the city.
After I finished writing this letter, my maternal grandfather suddenly fell ill with pneumonia and passed onto glory 2 days later. I came across a photo of him on my phone the other day from his 89th birthday celebration this summer, and I felt a fresh pang of sorrow. So many happy childhood memories center around him and my late grandmother. It’s hard to believe he is gone, but I praise God that he is now whole, with Mom-mom, and basking in the beautiful presence of our Savior.
We pray that 2011 has been full and rich for you too. May you enjoy great happiness this holiday season and throughout the new year.
Much love,
Becky (for all the Holloways)
Dear Friends and Family,
2011 has been a very happy and full year for our family. Marked by the fulfillment of a lifetime dream for Trey and a job change for me, it has been a paradoxical blend of significant change and real settling down into our home. We traveled to DC for our annual Memorial Day trip and discovered it may be time to temporarily pause that tradition until certain little ones’ legs and stamina grow, now that the strollers have been long retired. We also flew the whole crew down to Atlanta to visit Trey’s family for 4th of July. What a pleasure to see all 9 cousins together, running around thick as thieves. Around the house, we continued to make steady improvements, repainting the entire upstairs and replanting the grass on the tree belt in front of our house.
Genevie started preschool this autumn at the church school behind our house. She goes along with Davis three mornings a week and has become a fast favorite for her irresistible “yoo-hoo’s” called down the hallway as she approaches her classroom each morning and her compassionate heart for fellow playmates who shed separation anxiety tears. While 2 has been a challenging year behaviorally (isn’t it always?), it seems that she’s rounded the worst corner and daylight is ahead. Genevie is a complex blend of girly attitude and tough no-nonsense. She loves her baby doll Meh-meh right alongside dinosaurs and airplanes. Her morning greetings are full of sunshine and her love of music has only been amplified by a recent parent-child music class we are taking together.
Davis, 4 years old, attends Pre-K three mornings a week and has grown academically beyond what I ever anticipated at such a young age. His aptitude and interest in reading means that he’s already starting to recognize small words and knows the sounds for most letters. His memory is also remarkable, and he can quote lengthy dialogs from favorite films without skipping a beat. His personality is enigmatic. He is both independent and reserved, which often manifests itself as shyness in public. He feels things very deeply but sometimes struggles to express them in words. I suspect he has a very poetic soul and is maybe an artist at heart. He loves to draw or construct things, and I can see his right-sided brain working in a realm beyond the rest of us. For both his and Addison’s 6-days-apart birthdays in February we took the boys to NYC to see Mary Poppins on Broadway, which they both loved.
Addison has had a wonderful year in first grade so far. After struggling a bit to focus on his reading and “put it all together” early in the school year, he has benefited from a one-on-one reading instructor who is following the Reading Recovery program with him. In just a few short weeks he has made tremendous progress, and we feel very privileged to be in a school district where he can get this kind of focused attention. He has gotten very tall, quickly outgrowing last year’s jeans and sleeves, and at 6 years old is truly a help around the house both with his younger siblings as well as with chores. He’s lost a number of teeth and now sports the hilarious, lop-sided grin of grade school children. This spring he played t-ball for the first time. We all enjoyed cheering him on at his quick, 3-inning games and shared more than a few laughs at the awkward fielding and the massive helmets sported by the little guys on the field. Next year we will have two playing baseball and so the juggling of extra-curriculars begins.
This June Trey’s long-awaited book, Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland 1545-1622, was published by E.J. Brill, Leiden, one the oldest and most prestigious academic publishers in Europe (established 1683). Needless to say, there was much celebrating in the Holloway house. It was the culmination of many years of painstaking research, writing, and re-writing and it was wonderful to celebrate its completion. Not surprisingly, Trey has already plunged into the next book, as well as doing some original translation of Melville’s writings. He has also been asked to contribute to a collection of essays on Reformed orthodoxy in Scotland to be published in 2013 and has continued to do occasional adjunct teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. For right now, though, he is able to enjoy the freedom to research and write unencumbered by the demands of an academic calendar. This spring and fall Trey flew down to Atlanta to spend time with his mom and siblings, enjoying a much-deserved respite from the rigors of daily life. Despite a disappointing end to the baseball season for his Braves, Trey quickly shook it off to follow this year’s impressive Clemson football team who won their championship and is now going to the Orange Bowl.
This year Trey and I celebrated my 30th birthday in January with our first night away since having three kids. We went to NYC, saw Wicked on Broadway, enjoyed fabulous dining and great shopping. We plan to repeat the visit the week after Christmas to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. The highlight of my year was starting a new position at another tech firm in Center City Philadelphia. I am one of two new Product Marketing Managers at iMANY, a contract and pricing management software company for Fortune 500 enterprises. The decision to leave my last employer was not an easy one but was necessary for my own career advancement. Despite the ailing economy, I sent out an initial batch of resumes to a few positions advertised online and heard back from my new company the very next day. Between the smoothness of the interviewing process and the generosity of the employment offer, God made it evident to us what the right decision was. I am so happy where I am now and am truly grateful for God’s abundant provision beyond what I could have ever dreamed possible. This year I also got to travel to some pretty amazing places for work, including St. Moritz and Zurich (Switzerland), Phoenix, New York, San Francisco, and San Jose. Next up is my very first trip to Las Vegas in January. In my spare time I’ve become an avid gardener, and while I continue knitting, it has taken a bit of a backseat to voracious reading. I’ve devoured more than 8,000 pages this year, joining a monthly reading group this past February that meets in the city.
After I finished writing this letter, my maternal grandfather suddenly fell ill with pneumonia and passed onto glory 2 days later. I came across a photo of him on my phone the other day from his 89th birthday celebration this summer, and I felt a fresh pang of sorrow. So many happy childhood memories center around him and my late grandmother. It’s hard to believe he is gone, but I praise God that he is now whole, with Mom-mom, and basking in the beautiful presence of our Savior.
We pray that 2011 has been full and rich for you too. May you enjoy great happiness this holiday season and throughout the new year.
Much love,
Becky (for all the Holloways)
No comments:
Post a Comment