Christmas Letter

Here is a copy of the Christmas letter we mailed out this week. Postage is expensive so this is for everyone who did not receive a letter.

Dear Friends and Family,

We love the holiday season and can’t believe it has already been a year since last Christmas. It has been a good year and Lindsey and Manuel celebrated their 10 year anniversary on the 1^st. Time sure does fly. Here is an update of how our year has been.

We went on some fun trips this year. The family went to Bear Lake with Lindsey’s Dad and wife Candice. We stayed at some condos and had so much fun. Then we went to Kanab in September with Lindsey’s mom and family. That was fun as well. It was during the Western Legends festival. We also saw Bryce Canyon. Then we spent a week in Park City with our own little family. We did the Alpine Slide and made some great memories. Though we never left Utah this year we had so much fun!

Manuel has really worked his way up in his company this year. He still works for inContact down in Midvale. They are a phone software company and he is a Solutions Marketing Manager. He got a new boss earlier this year and she has made an effort to give him much recognition for his hard work and he has received some promotions and raises. He still gets to work from home a couple days a week which we all love. He’ll be traveling to Las Vegas in January for a sales conference.

Manuel has posted his hot wire foam cutting tool business for sale. It’s very profitable but he doesn’t have the time to put into it and we really could use the extra space in the garage. He’s hoping someone already in the construction industry will be interested. For what little time he put into it (all from home) he has done very well with it.

Manuel has not seen his family since August 2009 and he misses them. We are hoping they will come visit us next year or that he will be able to visit them. His mom is very busy with the hot wire foam cutting tool business. She manufactures them and sells them in Europe. She has done very well with it does it full time out of her home. She broke her ankle and will be in the hospital during Christmas and we wish her well.

When he is not working, Manuel is working out (1 hour per day), watching his German soccer games on TV and he is also a teacher in the Elders Quorum in our ward. He loves teaching and prepares some great lessons. Lindsey was just called to the Primary Presidency as the first counselor. This has kept her very busy but she enjoys teaching the children in our ward and helping them feel the Spirit each Sunday. This calling has made her very happy.

Lindsey has a gym membership and works out every day. She enjoys her “breaks” from the kids - even though she loves being a mom. She also loves to cook and has a food blog www.cookwithlindsey.com where you can see her recipes. She does online scrapbooking and still maintains the family blog each week. She also has been working on food storage all year and may finally be done! Her favorite memory this year was learning to fish with her Dad and Gabe. Together they hooked 18 fish at East Canyon. Lindsey’s goal this year was to learn to fish, to actually catch some and to gut them and clean them herself which she accomplished.

Lindsey has made a renewed commitment earlier this year to invest her time in her family and church callings. She’ll occasionally do some speaking or interviews here and there on behalf of her book, but has greatly limited them. That’s what happens when there are three children to take care of - priorities change. She’ll be speaking in February at Thanksgiving Point for a couple’s Marriage Seminar and looks forward to it.

Her product Hydroheel has been undergoing a makeover and the company who has licensed it out (TVgoods.com), is currently working on pushing it to online retailers and is awaiting a response from HSN. We have had to be patient since March but we really hope things will be moving forward after the holidays. TVgoods.com has undergone some major changes in their company and a new person gets assigned to Lindsey’s product every 2 months - it seems like we are starting all over each time this happens. No worries – this has taught us great patience and gratitude for what we have.

Gabe is quite the little clown. He can really make a crowd laugh when he is not trying. He attends preschool at Bravo Arts Academy twice a week and attends tumbling classes every Saturday morning. He loves learning and he is very good at tumbling. He was also in soccer this last summer. We still have people ask us if he is 6 years old – they are surprised that he is four. He is tall for his age and advanced with his speech and learning. He is such a social butterfly and makes friends wherever he goes. He is going to be a great leader because loves bossing other kids around (in a nice way) and they love to do what he says. He has quite the imagination and is very creative. He also loves to play the Wii. He is very good and smart with electronics and has learned how to take care of our DVDs, TV and equipment. He is also very smart with getting what he wants from other people and tries to outsmart his own parents all the time. Not sure who he learned this from ;) Gabe also loves to dance and sing. He has a karaoke machine and sings on it every day and dances with his sister. They also play Lindsey’s piano keyboard every day – they like to make up songs. Gabe loves to perform and is not shy one bit. He also makes a great host and whenever people come over he tries to make them feel right at home. We love him!

Paisley is a cute little girl. She pretends to be shy. At home she is full of energy and loves to yell. She has a scary monster voice she loves to talk in that is hard to imagine coming from the mouth of such a cute little girl. She can also be a bit feisty and extremely silly. As soon as she is around other people she puts her head down and talks in a quiet whispering voice with no eye contact. It makes us laugh but others don’t believe us when we tell them how energetic she is. She loves baby dolls and girly things. She also loves playing trucks, trains and blocks with her brother. She is almost 2 and a half and can talk really good for her age. Her nursery teachers tell us that she is the easiest to understand out of all the kids her age. She talks just as good as her brother did at her age.

Paisley was potty trained a couple weeks ago and then for some strange reason reverted back to pull ups. We’re not sure why – it might have to do with the baby. She loves to unload the dishwasher and take baths.

Little Cambrey is growing so big. She is eight weeks and laughing and smiling all the time. She is such a happy little baby and easy. She has dark hair and it looks like she is going to have blue eyes – different than her brother and sister. She finally sleeps through the night and loves playing with her brother and sister. They can make her laugh.

We still have our Jack Russell Terrier Mitzie. She spends most of the day sleeping and is a shy yet happy dog. She recently found a new joy in playing with the kids.

Overall this has been a great year and we cannot complain. We have grown in great strides this year spiritually and mentally. We are truly grateful for all of our many blessings and feel the Lord’s hand strongly in our life. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and many blessings for your New Year!

Love,

The Rietzschs