2009 Christmas Letter

This year has been a year of many ups and downs. We started this year by being unemployed. Jeremy finally got a job in March at Chargeback Guardian. He still works there, and it has been a wonderful company to work for. They are willing to work around his frequently changing schedule, which has been blessing for us.
We had had the opportunity to take several family vacations this year. We drove to California for a Zachreson family reunion. We finally made it to Boise to visit friends of ours. It was their first time meeting Jeremy, and I was so glad that Jeremy got along with them so well. We attended the Beck (extended family) reunion since it was held in Salt Lake this year. Another small vacation we had this summer was Jeremy's first annual immediate Beck family reunion. We were also able to go visit my grandparents in Montana this year.
Jeremy has been working very hard at both work and school. He decided to take an internship at Richter 7, which is one of the best companies in Utah for the field he's studying. It's an unpaid internship, so we are hoping it beefs up the resume enough for him to get a good job. But all of Jeremy's hard work has paid off. He'll graduate from UVU in graphic design by the end of this month. We are all looking forward to no more homework!
Sarah keeps herself busy raising Clara, babysitting, and tutoring. She loves getting to be a stay at home mom so that she can watch her little Clara grow and change. She also loves watching Addi, and is looking forward to babysitting Addi's new little sister when Addi's mom goes back to work after her maternity leave. Sarah also tutors both high school and college students in their math classes. She's had the opportunity to tutor Calculus this year, which is something new to her. She never taught it, so it was fun going back and relearning it. She has found a new love of Calculus.
Clara continues to grow and change. She is definitely the source of entertainment in our house. She loves to learn. She has learned all her letters this year, as well as numbers 1 - 12. She also knows all the basic colors and shapes. She gets so excited when she sees different shapes. Her favorite thing to do is dance and run fast. She'll come up and ask me to twirl her. When I do, she never grows tired of spinning in a circle. Even when she is so dizzy she can't stand up, she'll get mad at me if I stop twirling her. She will also come up and ask me to sing. As soon as I start singing, she'll start dancing. Her favorite song to dance to is Give Said the Little Stream. She'll also want me to join her in dancing anytime she hears music. Her favorite movie is Cars. Whenever a song comes on during that movie, I have to sing the words to the song (even if I don't know them) and dance with her. She also loves to run fast. We play "go" in our house a lot. That is where we run from one end of our little apartment to the other over and over again. However, Clara also wants me to run fast with her in the middle of grocery stores, at the library, or any other place with lots of people around.
We hope your year has been as wonderful as ours has been. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love,
Jeremy, Sarah, and Clara Beck