Christmas Card and Letter

The Hease family has had a busy year! Two thousand ten flew by so fast; I'm having a difficult time remembering everything. I will attempt to give you the highlights without boring you. Hopefully I succeed.

Eric and I have always dreamed of living in Colorado. We love the outdoors and all that comes with it! We had been talking about miving since before we were married.

At the end of March we took a vacation to Colorado Springs, to check things out. We fell in love. We headed back to Texas and life went on. We were still dreaming of moving to Colorado and talked of moving there for about a month.

In May we decided to just go for it. We're young, and have savings; would there ever be a better time? We put in our notice with our landlord, and began making plans. We planned to move at the beginning of July! We celebrated Elise's 1st birthday with 3 (yes, I said 3) birthday parties! We had 2 in TX and 1 in MI to visit my family! Flying with a 1 year old was not quite as bad as I expected. I got to see lots of family including my Grandpa for the last time. We also learned that Eric's brother and his girlfriend were having a baby!

July finally arrived and we loaded up all our belongings and move 16 or so hours away. It was an interesting trip with Eric and Lilly (our dog) in the truck pulling his Land Crusier and Elise and I in my car. We did stop for 1 night, but proceeded to unload as soon as we arrived! By mid-July we found an amazing church where we felt right at home! Eric's parents came to visit at the end of the month and it was great to have family visit!

In October, my parents & sister came for a visit! It was so wonderful to see them! Elise loved showing off for them! Eric attempted to climb Pike's Peak, a 14,110 foot mountain here in The Springs, they had quite the storm and closed the top of the mountain before he could make it to the top. Eric also decided to pursue his photography business, something he has wanted to do for quite some time! Check out his website at: ericheasleyphoto.com.

November, I did a pretty large craft show for my business, Funky Sprouts and we had our very first Thanksgiving with just the 3 of us. We missed our family immensely, but enjoyed the experience of cooking the Thanksgiving meal all on our own. Our nephew turned 4 and Eric's brother got married! Elise turned 18 months! We can't believe it been a year and a half since she was born! At times it seems like it was just yesterday that she was born and other times I can't imagine what life was like without her. She is an extremely active child and keeps Eric and I on our toes every moment. She is quite the talker and is learning new words everyday! She loves being outside and is determined to hike right along with us when we go for a hike. We also learned that Eric's Grandpa's health is going downhill and his parents would be spending Christmas in MI with him instead of coming to see us. We understood of course and are planning to venture to MI ourselves before my sister and brother-in-law come to visit us! It'll be a wonderful Christmas filled with much needed family time! We can't wait!

We just signed a lease on a 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house that we are very excited about. Let me know if you need our new address and I will get it to you.

As you can see, it's been a year of change for The Hease family. We've experienced many emotions and I know this will continue to be the case for quite some time. Despite the struggles, we still absolutely love it here and wouldn't think of living anywhere else at this point in our lives. We would appreciate any prayers you are willing to send our way. A few specific things are the Eric's photography business would thrive and that we would have a chance to develop quality friendships.