Merry Christmas every­one! You’re likely read­ing this at the end of Advent or dur­ing the Twelve Days of Christmas. Amidst the wait­ing and cel­e­brat­ing of the sea­son, we’ve taken a few min­utes to re­flect on the year as it draws to an end.

2024 was an­other full year. In January, we vis­ited fam­ily in Mobile and Pensacola. Brian con­tin­ued work­ing on his new pro­ject at work, and was as busy as he’s ever been in his ca­reer.

In January and February, Brian helped re­vamp the House of Humane Letters on­line reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem. There were a few tense mo­ments (like it’s-three-days-be­fore-reg­is­tra­tion-starts-and-maybe-we-need-to-scrap-every­thing-and-use-the-old-sys­tem tense), but they fin­ished by reg­is­tra­tion day and the sys­tem worked fairly smoothly. Success!

Otherwise, we stayed close to home and kept it low-key be­fore it was time to meet our newest daugh­ter. Our friend Louise vol­un­teered to watch the girls when it was time to go to the hos­pi­tal. On the 20th, when Melissa’s wa­ter broke at 3 am, we called and Louise ar­rived 10 min­utes later! Less than six hours af­ter that, Verity Hope Koser was born.

Verity had some early strug­gles with gain­ing weight and with her neck, but has been a cheer­ful sweet­heart through it all.

Brian got four weeks of pa­ter­nity leave and took on most of the house­hold chores and the home­school­ing. Melissa fo­cused on Verity and her own re­cov­ery.

In May, we de­cided to turn the play room into a bed­room for Lydia and Amber. With the space sep­a­rate from the younger sis­ters came a later bed time and ex­tra bed­time sto­ries. One of Lydia’s fa­vorites of the year was Aeneas: Virgil’s Epic Retold for Younger Readers; Amber re­ally en­joyed Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

In June, we again trav­elled to Mobile and Pensacola, this time to in­tro­duce baby Verity to the fam­ily. Unlike the pre­vi­ous sum­mer, Brian con­tin­ued run­ning through the heat and com­pleted his first trail runs.

In July, Lydia and Amber, with some friends from our home­school co-op, per­formed in a mu­si­cal about Queen Esther.

On the spur of the mo­ment, Brian signed up for a month-long on­line class about The Brothers Karamazov through The House of Humane Letters. Other books and pro­jects had to go on hold, but it was worth it to blaze through the novel and hear Dr. Jason Baxter’s lec­tures.

In August, we fi­nally vis­ited Brian’s sis­ter Lindsey and fam­ily in Missouri! We vis­ited a swim­ming hole, an amuse­ment park, and an enor­mous Bass Pro Shop with an en­tire aquar­ium in­side. Also, lots of just hang­ing out while the girls ran around out­side with their cousins. It was one of our most mem­o­rable va­ca­tions.

In the fall, Melissa got the op­por­tu­nity to take a be­gin­ner course in Russian!

In September, the girls hosted a tea party for a few ladies from church. Everyone was de­lighted with the event and agreed it de­served a re­peat.

In October, our friend Louise was hos­pi­tal­ized. When she moved to a re­hab cen­ter, we made Thursdays “Dinner with Louise” days, which bright­ened all our spir­its. Brian flew to Minnesota for a week­end to see old friends, meet new friends, and run his first 10-mile race. Melissa hosted a Sip and Savor party where she shared her fa­vorite pro­bi­otic food and drinks with seven other ladies.

November was a busy month of din­ners with friends, end-of-term ex­ams for the school girls, and dri­ving to Indiana for a Binzel Thanksgiving!

In December, Brian built a web­site for a friend that opened a used book­store in Huntsville! Check it out at https://​the­book­wyrmhsv.com/. While caught up in the web­site build­ing fever he added a few up­dates to our own web­site, no­tably a cal­en­dar and a dic­tio­nary.

Lydia and Amber fin­ished a pro­ject they started in September: the Huntsville Kid’s Marathon. They ran with mom or dad a cou­ple miles a week, up to 25.2 miles. Then on a sunny December day, they ran the fi­nal mile to com­plete their marathon! Brian ran a new longest race: his first half marathon.

Amid the Advent joy, we bid a sad good­bye to our friend Louise. For the girls, it was the first death of some­one close. We mourned with our church fam­ily but also cel­e­brated the sure hope that we will meet her again.

We’re trav­el­ling to Louisiana for Christmas and will up­date this let­ter af­ter the trip.

If you want to hear Brian and Melissa talk about the year, in­clud­ing our fa­vorite books and films of the year, and our plans for the next, check out our pod­cast over the next few weeks.

Much love from Brian, Melissa, Lydia, Amber, Penelope, Susanna, and Verity