Merry Christmas

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

Our new Life in the quiet and quaint village of Cary is definitely a change.  There’s really not much here though but the train and the river and lots of beautiful green space.  Spring & Summer were short but lush and green and beautiful.  This year much of summer was spent in the pond catching frogs. 

Winter transforms the world into an arctic like tundra with endless snow and the frozen river. The train station and cute downtown shopping area are bathed in lights and evergreen boughs and even the engines are wrapped in bright
and sparkly Christmas décor. 

We are so in love with our little spot here on the river.  Surrounded by woods and wildlife, our duck pond that attracts 200+ ducks in winter, watching the snowmobiles race down the frozen river, it’s all so refreshing! Our house is so cute – but doesn’t quite meet our needs.  We really want to be settled somewhere though so I guess only time will tell what happens next. 

Health wise we survived a Hernia repair surgery (with sooo much help from both our moms!) and for Matt another 3^rd Degree Ankle Sprain and a full year without gluten (except for a few random poisonings).  We celebrated 17 years of marriage this year and someone turned 40! Starting to feel it!

Long awaited changes at Chopper Trading have brought Matt a much better Work environment with only a few unexpected repercussions.

Izzy (10) finished a year of home school and returned to 5^th grade at 3 Oaks.  She is mostly interested in Horses, Chickens and Minecraft.

Alex (8) is in 2^nd grade and is our family smarty pants/ politician girly, girl drama queen! She does the best pirate accent ever!

Max (3) completed a year of speech therapy and not only can he call me MOMMY now – he is talking non-stop.  He qualified for the Early Childhood Preschool and is having a great time there!

The sweet Border Collie rescue puppy we call Lucy joined our family this spring – we found out later that she is really Rat Terrier (yikes) and English Shepherd mix.  She is small, crazy, and fast!  She is still no match for our tree climbing, duck chasing, German Shepherds play mate kitten, Charlie – who may grow to be bigger than Lucy.  Sadly, we said goodbye to our 17 year old cat Elmo – who succumbed to lymphoma – the last of our original 9 cats L. 

We’ve kept busy enough in church too.  Becca is currently serving as Relief Society Meeting Coordinator and Matt is serving as Sunday School President and Cub Scout Master.

We’ve had the privilege of enjoying many friends from Kansas City & St Louis, All 3 of Becca’s Sisters, Both Grandma’s as well Becca’s Sister Lisa and her kids who stayed for a little longer-term as their family made their transition to Alabama.  Our guest room is now open again to visitors!!!

We look forward to a new year full of learning about managing well water and clogged ponds, repairing walls and soccer, violin and horseback riding lessons and hopefully teaching Miss Lucy some fly ball (agility training) !!  We hope to take in a few more Bulls games and Cubs games and hike, bike and explore a thousand more of the infinite fabulous trails, preserves and green spaces that make Illinois so beautiful.  We'll see how much of that actually happens :)

God Bless you and yours for this Holiday season and in the New Year.

With Much Love

The Secor Family