Mark is working as a spinal surgery PA at Southern Utah Neurosciences Institute. He splits his clinic/surgery days between Cedar City and St. George (50 miles away) and is on call at the hospital a few times a month. He likes his job and he's got a good thing going for him there. He still loves video games and has started repairing vintage Game Boys and other hand held systems. He also built a beehive and will hopefully be getting some bees in the spring to put in it. He lost his dad Frank to pancreatic cancer in October (aged 81) and so he is making sure to take care of his mom Kathy, who lives nearby in Hurricane.
Melissa is always cramming in projects from a need to be creative (and yet struggles to finish anything because...*kids*). Lately, she has been working on sewing aprons, baby stuff for friends, altering the kids' clothes, bottling dozens of jars of jam and just revamped her etsy shop (www.Moenave.etsy.com) where she has sold her jewelry for the past eight years. This blog has been woefully neglected, but she is determined to get it caught up again. Mostly she just cooks and cleans and mothers everybody. Being a mom is a full time job! She is currently nerding out over Fantastic Beasts and Star Wars Rogue One, of course.
Madelyn turned 12(!) on December 21st. She is growing into a beauty with shiny, dark hair and super long legs and arms. She is still taking gymnastics and her favorite subjects in school are art and science. She is in 6th grade, which is middle school here. It has been quite the adjustment for everybody but she is getting good grades. She got double strabismus eye surgery in July to fix the muscles that surround her eyes so that they point straight forward. She was very brave and her eyes look great. She still needs glasses but now that her eyes are more in sync, she can finally see 3-D images! She loves reading and drawing and her cat, Tiger. She really, really hates writing essays and putting her laundry away.
Luke is 7 and is in 1st grade. He is a little smartypants. His teacher says he's reading at a 5th grade level and sends home chapter books for us to read together. He's also good at math and science. This year, we finally got his asthma and ADHD under control with the right medications and they've been really helpful. He started karate in January and has advanced to yellow belt. He loves to be on the computer, has a lot of energy in general and wants me to buy him a new Nerf gun every time I go to the store. He just lost his two front teeth and has never even heard the song "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", which is a tragedy.
Isabelle is 2 1/2 and darned if anyone is going to tell her how to live her life. She stays up till midnight on a regular basis no matter WHAT her mom does. She was just born to go, go, go. Besides wearing her mom out, Isabelle enjoys being cute, showing off her long, luscious wavy hair, throwing toys all over the house, eating noodles and learning her letters, numbers, shapes and colors. She is a happy sunshine but is still quite clingy and needs lots of cuddles and usually ends up in mom and dad's bed at night, where she kicks off all the covers. She recently decided to become a daddy's girl and daddy couldn't be happier about it.
We hope you are all doing well and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
Mark, Melissa, Madelyn, Luke and Isabelle (and Tiger) (and the fish) ♥♥♥
