2009 Christmas Greetings from the Warren Family

Dearest family and friends-

Considering the current state of the world, we understand how blessed we are to be in our home, to have some stable employment, and to have loving family and friends around us. The year 2009 has been a challenging, yet memorable, year for our family.

One of our greatest joys was the January marriage of Jessica and Brad in the Salt Lake Temple. It was just a delightful experience for us all. She was a beautiful bride, and we consider ourselves extremely lucky to have Brad in our family. They bought their first home in Provo this summer and are fixing it all up. Two darling kittens joined the family in the fall, much to Jessica’s joy and slightly less joy from Brad. Brad works in management for a company in Lindon, and Jess is the ballroom coach for two teams at a Provo high school. They are coming home to Reno for Christmas…we can’t wait!

Chelsea has had a very busy year. She is in her last year in her journalism program at BYU and worked as an editor for the BYU paper since last winter semester. She was chosen to represent BYU and attend a journalism conference in New York in February; she just loved that…especially seeing Wicked on Broadway. She interviewed and landed a summer internship at the Mormon Times, which is under the Deseret News umbrella there in Salt Lake. She wrote several articles for the Times last summer. It was fun to look for her articles each week in the Mormon Times. This semester she is back working at the BYU newspaper as the city desk editor and is a freelance reporter for the Deseret News. She was asked to interview for a full-time position at the Mormon Times this month, so we shall see how that plays out. It will mean putting off graduation for a while longer, but a job is a job!

Felicity has also been a busy little beaver this year. She was active in drama last year and was in several plays towards the end of the school year. After school got out she joined the McQueen cross-county team and ran herself to death all summer! I got real concerned about her running in the 100° Reno heat, but she did it! She loved being on the team during the fall semester, made a whole new group of friends and learned to be part of a team. After cross-country was over, she auditioned for Honor Choir here in Reno and made it. Her week evenings were busy getting ready for the November concert … it was quite an amazing experience. She is doing well in her junior year and hopes to apply to BYU next fall. Our bishop took the Laurels and Priests up to experience church conference first hand this last October and she just really enjoyed that.

Miss Annie is taller than me and still seems to be growing. She ended off her 6th grade year playing trumpet in the band, however, I was informed that trumpet is just not her instrument. She really enjoyed swimming as much as possible last summer, is a real water baby. She is now doing very well in the 7th grade, particularly in writing. She fills notebooks with her short stories. She is a real fan of the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. She is enjoying being in Young Womans and is the Beehive secretary.

Brian and I are still keeping busy. I am still teaching English and drama to Reno’s finest. Actually, I have a great group of motivated kids this year. I taught summer school again this summer and am teaching a couple of after- school programs now. I also became a writing grader for the state this year. We took a group of our 8th graders to San Francisco at the end of last year. I got to see things that I had never visited before when we lived there. I will do a play again this year, but not until the spring. Brian spent some of his spare time finishing up the waterfall in the backyard this summer. It really looks fabulous. The project was a very big one and has taken four years to finish, but it was worth the wait.

So, that about wraps it up for us. I have absolutely no idea how to do this blogging thing…just no time to sit down with it. I had to have Chels get it all organized for me while she was home this week. We hope that your families are all well and that 2009 has been filled with rich blessings. We are so grateful for loving people, whose lives touch ours for the better.

Merry Christmas to you all and wonderful blessings for the New Year.

Love,

Brian, Melody, Chelsea, Felicity, and Annie