Well, it’s that time again, time to recap our year for our eager readers (hehehe). We began the year with celebrating New Year’s with Daniel’s family in the BURG! It was fun to have his brothers and sisters and parents see where we had called home for the last 2 ½ years! We didn’t get any good pictures of all of us together but we had a great time walking in CW, visiting DC and playing silly games together.

Most of you know that in mid-May we packed up our 1993 Toyota minivan and headed back West to Tucson. Daniel graduated from The College of William & Mary with a law degree. Behind us we left some amazing friends and family. We miss you all but hope to exchange visits! If you missed our exploits as we moved across country...just check out our blog. We did the trip a bit of justice with photos and text.Since we’ve been back in Tucson, Laura cleaned and painted the entire house with my mother’s help (see our new colors on our blog!) and Laura got a job as an Administrative Assistant to the Department Head of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. This has been such a blessing to pay the bills rather seamlessly after arriving. Laura really enjoys her coworkers and enjoys a slow paced work environment which is a nice change.

Daniel spent the summer studying for the Arizona Bar Exam. In late July he took the two day 8 hour days exam and in early October he found out that he passed. For which we are soooooo grateful! We had a big bash to celebrate the last 3 ½ years of studying and hard work in early November. We will let you know when Daniel gets a job!

We have enjoyed reconnecting with family and friends while we’ve been back and have fit back into our church, Northminster Presbyterian, which is awesome. We joined the choir right away and have been hard at work recovering our breath support in an attempt to contribute positively to the recent performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria. It is such a privilege to perform such amazing music with such talented people.

We have become an Aunt and Uncle for the first time – 3 times over this year! In January, my brother Jason and his wife Jennifer became temporary foster parents to Priscilla. She has been a special member of our family and has enliven all of our family events. In early May my college roomie, Jess and her husband Derek had a litle girl name Ryah Soren. We were able to visit with the tiny little one on our trip from VA to AZ while hanging in Dever for a couple of days (we are Auntie and Uncle to this fam). And last but not least, in late July we welcomed Lewis Clayton Byrd to the family. Daniel’s sister, Stephanie and her husband, Preston who now live in Portland, OR invited us to stay with them when Lewis was only 9 days old! It was such a joy and we are looking forward to playing with a bigger Lewis in January!

We have a feeling that 2012 holds a lot of new and pleasant changes for our little family. We will keep you posted...on our blog. We pray that you and yours find a little peace in this crazy over-commercialized season. We look forward to a quiet Christmas in Tucson with family and festive new year in San Diego with Daniel’s family and family friends the Rupkes. Yea! No flying for us! We wish you the same but more than that, we wish you Christ’s peace in this unsettling economy and a world that is never fully at peace. The Peace that passes understanding…

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Photo: Colonial Williamsburg in Winter. We miss our CW walks in all weather & seasons

Also while in Florida we visited Daniel’s

Grandparents, Esther & Clayton at

Traveler’s Rest Resort in Dade City. What a great trip!

In March we went to sunny Florida to warm up and

visit Disney and Universal with friends Amy and

Michael who flew over from AZ. We also visited with

our friend Lisa and went to Wycliffe International

Headquarters.

Merry Christmas& Happy New

Year 2012