Merry Christmas from the VanDyck's

Okay so most of you recieved our Family Christmas Card...you may have noticed something was missing...our family letter. Someone in our family, we wont mention any names, but lets just say it's the only person with a Y-chromosome, decided to seal them up and mail them off before we printed it off. Anyways here is what should have been included in your Christmas card :)

Christmas 2007
Volume 3
Dear Family and Friends,

First of all we would like to say Merry Christmas to all of our loved ones! We hope this letter finds you in great Christmas Spirit! It has been quite a crazy year in the VanDyck home to say the least. It started out in the beginning of the year when we moved off base and into a big new rental home. We still are unsure about buying because of the uncertainty of how long we will be staying in Texas. Our house now has plenty of room for all of us; the girls have their own rooms and a playroom! We have a nice big green backyard for the girls and Roxy and run around in! We live pretty close to a lot of family friends so that is nice.

After we were all settled and into the new house, Stacy’s Mom came back to Texas for a visit and to wait with us for Jordyn to be born. We waited, and we waited….The Dr’s told us she would definitely come early, so Mom was here about 5 weeks before Jordyn was born, after changing her plane ticket twice. They finally decided to induce Stacy at almost 42 weeks. After 12 hours of induction and some close calls, Jordyn was finally born via c-section on May 16th, 2007. As most of you know, she was in the NICU for 2 weeks for a lot of unsuspected problems. Our Family was finally complete the day she came home from the NICU on May 30th 2007.

Just a few short weeks later, Geoff was to deploy to South America for 2-3 months. We decided it would be best for us to all drive home (what were we thinking??) to California so Stacy and the girls could stay with family. The drive was crazy but we made it. After 2 very long months Geoff came home. We celebrated Abby’s 3rd birthday with our Family and friends in California. On the way back we stopped for a fun-filled family vacation at Disneyland in Southern California. This was Abby’s 1st time to Disneyland and she couldn’t have had more fun!!! It was so awesome to see her with all her favorite characters, including…all of the PRINCESSES! We got to have one-on-one time with each of them one morning, then that night we got to have dinner with them!

After 2 fun days we had to end our short vacation and head back to Texas. We were driving back, only about 4 hours from San Antonio, when the car swerved out of nowhere and Stacy lost control of our vehicle. We ended up rolling down the freeway 4-5 times. God was completely there with us the entire time because we had very MINOR injuries, and the girls were completely unharmed. It’s still hard to believe we survived this sort of accident, but then we think about why and it was ALL GOD!!!

Abby of course is amazingly smart! She now knows her ABC’s, Numbers, Shapes, Colors, Animals, Patterns, etc. We practice in Preschool workbooks pretty much everyday. Jordyn is rolling all over the place. She can roll across the living room in the blink of an eye. She is learning to crawl, but not in any hurry to do it. Abby is Jordyn’s favorite person in the world! She can be crying and just seeing Abby will put a huge smile on her face. We really could not ask for a better pair of sisters!

We are now back in Texas trying to move on with our lives and be happy with all God has blessed us with. The New Year has more adventures to bring and we never know what the future holds. We thank you all for your continued prayers, love and support and we want to make sure that you all know we are always thinking and praying for you all. God Bless and Godspeed to each and every one of you, we will keep you informed of any future events that we are having or can hopefully attend.

Merry CHRIST-mas and Happy HOLY-days

The VanDycks