Christmas Letter 2019

What a year! In January we went on our first-ever cruise, a Dice Tower cruise with Royal Carribean. While Grandma and Grandpa Koser watched the girls for a week, we trav­eled to Haiti and Jamaica and back to the States, play­ing board games, hik­ing across the ship, watch­ing dol­phins, hik­ing some more, eat­ing great food, and hik­ing till we wore out! In Haiti, we went snor­kel­ing (Melissa’s first time!), and to this day it re­mains one of her most trea­sured mem­o­ries. Another fun ac­tiv­ity was a mur­der mys­tery din­ner. One morn­ing we de­cided to watch the sun rise over the ocean, but al­most missed it due to los­ing each other on the enor­mous deck of the ship. We cer­tainly got our ex­er­cise that morn­ing! In Jamaica, we got to eat au­then­tic Jerk Chicken, and it truly can’t be repli­cated out of the coun­try. On the last day or two, we took a danc­ing class where we learned the cha-cha. While we can’t claim to be grace­ful, at least we kept up with the rhythm.

In April, we took a road trip through South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The first stop was to see Matt Koser grad­u­ate from col­lege! We con­sid­ered mov­ing in 2020, so we took the long way home to check out the area. We used AirBNB for the first time; some of them were truly de­light­ful. Our fa­vorite had a ham­mock, rope swing, see­saw, zi­pline, and some an­i­mals for the girls to play with. There was a burger restau­rant named Al’s that had per­haps the best burg­ers we’ve ever eaten, all of it from lo­cally-sourced farms.

During our trav­els, Brian still had to work, so Melissa spent the days vis­it­ing lo­cal at­trac­tions with the girls. One of their fa­vorites was a Discovery Museum in North Carolina, filled with dif­fer­ent play sta­tions such as doc­tor­ing stuffed an­i­mals, run­ning a farm, sail­ing a pi­rate ship, and much more.

At the end of May, we flew out to Colorado to visit Melissa’s sis­ter Melody, and her hus­band Nate. We had a great time play­ing board games and re­con­nect­ing. One day we drove to a fair in Boulder, where we ate greasy food and bought great stuff we did­n’t need. Another day we drove from Denver to Fort Collins and back, check­ing out the towns in-be­tween.

One last high­light of our trip was at­tend­ing a Rockies base­ball game. We rode the mono­rail to and from the game, and even though the Rockies lost, we still had fun.

In August, our pre­cious Penelope June was born, on the day af­ter Melissa’s birth­day! She weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz. and seems to re­sem­ble Brian the most. She is very mel­low and happy—she loves watch­ing peo­ple and play­ing with her fam­ily. She al­most never fusses: her goal seems to be to make life as sim­ple as pos­si­ble for mommy and daddy.

Inspired by a trip to a Little Mermaid bal­let in May, Melissa signed Lydia up for bal­let classes, which she be­gan in September. She is more ag­ile and bal­anced, and is ex­cited for her recital in May. Amber of course can’t wait to par­tic­i­pate in classes next year!

Lydia also started learn­ing how to read, and by December was read­ing short sen­tences and writ­ing many let­ters.

Amber’s achieve­ments in the fall were potty train­ing and us­ing full sen­tences! Her dic­tion is good for her age, and she’s de­vel­op­ing so rapidly.

Melissa ac­com­plished sev­eral goals for the year! She and her friend Tristan Wedge re­painted Lydia’s old crib into a beau­ti­ful tod­dler bed for Amber the month be­fore Penny was born.

During November and December, she con­verted an old chair into a toy kitchen for the girls, which we pre­sented at Christmas. By the end of the year, she fin­ished read­ing a 900-page book on the sci­ence of cook­ing, called The Food Lab. She will be teach­ing a home­school co-op class based on much of it in the spring of 2020.

Speaking of pro­jects, Brian has worked hard to up­date our pod­cast Ten To One, and his brother Matt de­signed the bold and fresh look it cur­rently sports.

Brian has be­come an in­te­gral and re­spected mem­ber of his com­pany. In 2019, he co­or­di­nated get­ting his com­pany into a re­cruit­ment even at our alma mater, and it’s now a part of their an­nual re­cruit­ment sched­ule. He also won the of­fice Halloween Costume Contest by dress­ing up as his co-worker, Peter!

We’ve en­joyed some pre­cious par­ent-daugh­ter dates this year. In March, Melissa took Lydia to a Fancy Nancy party at our lo­cal li­brary. They danced, dec­o­rated a cookie, made jew­elry, and had fun be­ing girly. In May, there was the Little Mermaid bal­let. In July, we at­tended one of the last games of our for­mer lo­cal Minor League Baseball team, the Mobile Bay Bears. In October, Brian took the girls to dance with and meet Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and other princesses at the civic cen­ter down­town; they still talk about it, and ask when they can do that again.

A few weeks later, Brian went on a date with Lydia to see Spirited Away in the­ater, a movie which they both love. And just a cou­ple weeks af­ter that, Melissa and Amber at­tended a Sesame Street Live per­for­mance, again at the civic cen­ter.

Tim Binzel joined us for Christmas again this year, and two days af­ter we wrapped up the year by vis­it­ing Brian’s par­ents in Louisiana. One high­light was that the girls got to meet their Great-Grandma Sabol! She and Mom Koser took them to see Frozen II in the­aters on the last day of the year, and it’s be­come one of their fa­vorite mem­o­ries.

It’s been a full and ex­cit­ing year, but we know that it just gets bet­ter with each new day. God has blessed us so much, and we are thank­ful to have each other. We’ll see you next decade!