2011 Family News at Christmas

Lois and I are in New Zealand for Christmas.  We will spend Christmas with our daughter Emily who lives in Auckland.












Emily met Erlo Jones when they were both teaching English in Korea, and they got married this last April in Koh Samui, Thailand.

Erlo is a Kiwi (a New Zealand citizen, born in South Africa), and they both found jobs here in New Zealand.  Our first few days here with them have been a wonderful time for us to learn about their lives, and to discover some of the beauty of this lovely country.  We will spend Christmas with them, and with Erlo's parents in Rotorua.

Before we left, we celebrated Christmas with our daughter Angela, son-in-law Shaun and little Parker.  They live close by in San Jose, California and we enjoy visiting them regularly and getting grandparent time with Parker.




We will miss spending Christmas with Marian, this year.  She will be coming to California from Madison, WI, where she is working on her dissertation, but we will only catch one day with her.   She leaves just one day after we get home.

But we did have a great time with her at Thanksgiving.  Some friends loaned us their cabin in Arnold, CA, for us to spend a week with the family.  Lois' mom, Eleanore Holderman, joined us for the whole week.
Tim's mom, Pat Halls, continues living at Plymouth Village in Redlands, CA.  He gets down to visit her every month or so.  Just before we left for New Zealand he went there to deliver a gift that Lois made, and that made her very happy!

One more very important thing.  We celebrated 35 years of marriage this last summer, with a visit to Montana.  In addition to Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, we visited four universities in Montana.

We are grateful for God's incredible and abundant generosity and mercy toward us.

And we are grateful to all of you who are part of our lives and for your prayers and support.