Happy New Year!

We are finally noticing that it's the New Year and we have yet to write a Christmas letter, so here's our New years greetings and an update on all the recent happenings. We have a lot of news! We spent a quiet Christmas here at home and then flew to Utah to continue the celebrations- mainly to await the arrival of Katie and Casey's baby. We got to Utah on Dec 29, had a great day with all the kids on the 30th and just after we all settled into bed Katie's water broke-and 4 hours later, she had a beautiful baby girl -Elsa Jean at 4:30 am on Dec 31. Check out Casey and Katie's blog for all the details and alot of adorable pictures!
Elizabeth, Scott and Nathan were in Utah for 3 weeks, Scott is finishing up his MPA at Cornell in May, Elizabeth is working at the local hospital, nights on the med/surg unit, and they are both having a great time keeping up with 2 yr old Nathan. He talks constantly, sings and loves cars trains and BYU! He does a great rendition of Rudolph- while jumping, check it out on their Johnson family blog. We all had so much fun with him, Anneliese was very excited about seeing Elsa since she never saw Nathan at such a young age, but after awhile she couldn't figure out how we could just sit and watch a sleeping baby and decided that a 2 yr old was much more fun! Nathan announced to us that he was going to be a big brother in August so that added to our Christmas joy too!
Katie and Casey are finishing up at BYU, Casey graduated in Dec in computer programming and Katie will graduate in April, She had her final art show in November and it was a great success. They are planning on moving to Oregon in April and will be working with Casey's family on the farm and dairy. Elsa is a very good baby and has constant web updates for which we are very grateful!
Stephanie is in her 2nd year at BYU and provided more family excitment for us over the holiday as we got to know her boyfriend Curt Wengel and they got engaged! They are planning a June wedding. Rich is still expecting Stephanie to run a marathon with him. She had it all worked out and arranged a "marathon clause" with her dad that if she was over 23 when she got married the marathon requirement was out! Well- since she just had her 20th birthday, she got running gear for Christmas! (Some say maybe Curt should have to run too!) Stephanie is hoping to get into the nursing program at BYU for spring semester.
Erik's new year's excitment involved finally getting his Utah driver's liscense, paving the way for a military liscense in Feb after his 17th birthday. He is already looking for an old car for us to buy him so he can help out with the driving to seminary etc. We need a junker that he can work on and practice his mechanic skills. He would like to have a few cars in the front yard to take apart and put back together but we're not sure our tidy German neighbors would appreciate the red-neck look in their village. He tried out the Utah skiing with Scott and Casey and then compared it to Switzerland this week on a ski trip with Rich.
Anneliese continues to grow up and added her own excitment to the holiday season and it didn't include a baby, a boyfriend or a car! She just enjoyed all siblings being together and wishes it could continue all year long. She really enjoyed playing with Nathan and reading to him and her not being the baby of the group! She loves her animals-and playing the violin, (but not practicing)
Rich and I are still here, enjoying life and mostly our wonderful children who bring us so much joy. Rich got promoted to Colonel this summer, so I enjoy the added parking priveledges and he gets more work! The fifty by fifty goal is almost attained- you can see that progress on his Gimsbacher runner blog- Casey has taken up running and is keeping Rich going trying to keep up with him. We're here for 3 more years to 2011 and then----- I'm ready to move to the USA and be grandma we'll see---
pictures- Nathan and Elsa, Grandma and Grandpa with Nathan and Elsa, Stephanie and Curt, and All the Jackson's together!