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Welcome to our 2019 Christmas letter.  2018 got away from me…I didn’t get to Christmas cards and letters, so I thought of a New Years card/letter…and here we are in December 2019, and that’s how that happened – haha.  I really missed sending out cards and reflecting on our year for our letter, so here we are with a revival of the Lyons Christmas Letter for 2019 and beyond!  Glad you’re here, hope you enjoy hearing about our year 😊

Christmas has crept up on us once again!  We started off December pretty strong, but life caught up to us and here we are on December 23!  Our tree sat bare in the family room for a week and a half before we had a) the time together and b) the energy to decorate it!  Now it’s all decorated, and we’re getting ready to celebrate together!  The girls and Doug are enjoying vacation while I work December 23 and 24.  Poor Nora was sick this morning though, so their planned tobogganing and ice skating had to give way to some movies and rest on the couch.  She and some friends tried to pull an all-nighter on the weekend (Nora “won” – staying up until 5am), so hopefully her illness is more exhaustion related and not a bug that we’re all going to share.

Side note – I’m finally posting this on December 26…haha!  There’s 100+ pics in the slideshow up top – hope you enjoy 😊

2019 has felt very LONG for us – and I’m imagining for you as well!  I was looking at pictures from this past year last night in preparing to write this letter today.  Looking at Nora & Katy’s faces from January 2019 vs. right now blows my mind!  Katy was missing both front teeth and very much still had her baby chubby cheeks!  Nora looked much more a little girl than the little lady she’s growing in to.  Time is cruel – and yet that’s all I want with the girls!  More time together, more enjoying each other’s company, and more memories made.

Here’s our 2019 recap for you 😊

Nora is 10! Double digits are a BIG DEAL, don’t you know?

She is very active and LOVES LOVES LOVES soccer!  She joined the Soo City Junior United team this year and got to participate in 2 tournaments in the States.  We went to Traverse City and Petoskey.  She also played soccer on her school’s team.  Their small but mighty team had an undefeated season and won the finals!  It was very exciting all around!!  The Junior United program starts back up again early January so she’s gearing up for that.  First step is finding some new cleats…this year we learned the lesson that when you leave very wet cleats in a plastic baggie for weeks, the smells are not friendly HAHA

She continues in Guides and this summer got the chance to go on a week-long, province-wide camp at Doe Lake called LEAP!  She and her fellow campers fundraised all year and she had the time of her life!  She got to hear Olympian Sarah Wells speak (we watched her on the Amazing Race!) and other fun things like paddle a Voyageur canoe, and make porcupine quill crafts.  She loved it and wished it would happen again Summer 2020!

This year she read and fell in love with Harry Potter!  She’s read all of the books (some more than once) and will talk your ear off about them if she has the chance!  She had a Harry Potter birthday party with her friends in September.  We made butter beer (as sweet as you would think it is!), wands, and did some Harry Potter trivia.  The party was a “late over” so the girls all stayed until after 11 watching the first Harry Potter movie in their jammies and then were dropped off at home!

Grade 5 has been good to Nora so far – she loves her teacher and her classmates.  In December they brought in gently used items from home and held a “winter sale” to fundraise to buy a goat for a family in a third-world country.  She’s back at school on January 6.

Katy is 7!  Katy is our home-body girl, preferring to burrow in to our couch – quite literally, she loves taking the cushions off and fashioning herself a nest with her toys and blankets – and camp out for a time.  CareBear and her doll Lylah (and all her accessories!) are never far away from Katy’s nest.  This year Katy asked Santa for a “friend for Lylah” and then had me add “a girl” to the list.

Katy has enjoyed swimming lessons and gymnastics this year.  She even tried “Ninja training” for a session (think American Ninja Warrior TV show).  She has enjoyed each of them – but always prefers to stay home!  In swimming she now swims in the deep pool and while it looks like she’s struggling from our perch in the stands – she excels!  She’s exhausted from keeping herself afloat, but that’s why we mostly do our lessons on Friday nights so we can go home and relax after.

Katy is very artistic and loves all things art.  She is always cutting and gluing and colouring and painting.  She still loves writing us a little note and leaving it on our night stand to find.  Every once in a awhile I get to go on a solo walk or skate with Katy and she always amazes me with our discussions.  She’s deep and insightful for a 7 year old!

Her reading has really taken off this year!  Something clicked near the end of grade one and beginning of grade 2 – and she is a full fledged reader now 😊  She enjoys graphic novel type books – especially Dog Man books and the Bird & Squirrel series.

Katy is in Brownies this year, having moved up from Sparks in May.  She bounds in with her abundant energy.  Brown Owl (who is also Nora’s Guider Amanda) says that she has to encourage Nora to “use her outdoor voice” and Katy to “use her indoor voice”!  She enjoyed her Sparks camp day in June and her Brownie sleepover in November.

She enjoyed soccer this summer, and took a lot of turns playing goalie!  When she did run, it was often with her arms twirling like a windmill – such Katy flair!

Katy’s grade 2 class has a superhero theme this year – something she loves!  She’s enjoying her class and school.  This year at the Christmas concert her class sang a song and performed a dance number!

Doug and I are well. He just reached his 15 year milestone at Tenaris.  He didn’t have too much travel this year – but did go to Houston in February.  He continues to curl on Tuesday nights – the girls and I got to go and watch a week ago.  They wound up winning the game we saw!  We’re looking forward to making salami again in January with our friends.  Winter started “early” here in the Soo and we already have some feet of snow to deal with.  Doug has been hard at work making our ice skating rink and toboggan hill in the backyard.  The girls are at a point where they can put on their own skates and helmets and go!  It’s nice having them come home from school and take a quick skate before supper.

My big excitement this year was emergency gallbladder surgery in May.  I went into the ER on a Sunday with intense stomach pain and stayed at SAH until I could get in for surgery on the Wednesday!  All went well and the doctor was able to remove it laparoscopically.  I was off work for 3 weeks and have had very little negative side effects – phew!  I was so thankful for all of the support we received to keep the girls in all of their activities, school, etc. and then support after I was home.

I’m still at OLG, and I still knit in my spare time – even making some Christmas gifts this year.  While I was off after my surgery I tried my hand at some crochet.  I prefer knitting 😉

This summer we travelled to Bracebridge to vacation with Brien family – only missing Nora as her LEAP camp overlapped!  She did get one night with everyone, thankfully!  The second week of our vacation we went down to Traverse City for a couple of nights at Great Wolf Lodge, and then a day on Mackinac Island before coming back home.  It was some nice family time away (though the girls definitely enjoyed Great Wolf more than Mackinac).

We’re spending Christmas Day here in the Soo and then travelling to Hamilton for “Christmas Part 2” with the Brien side of the family.  We’ll be back in town before 2020 😉  Looking forward to family time and visiting with cousins!

Wishing you and yours all the best for Christmas, and for 2020!  May you have some time to rest and rejuvenate!

With Love,

Doug, Alicia, Nora & Katy Lyons