The Official Rutledge Family Christmas Letter

Dear Friends and Family:

It is time once again for the annual Christmas letter. We are in the process of moving to a more electronic format but I will continue to send a paper copy to those who have not yet fully bought in to the electronic world. I actually like the hard copy myself. I have all of our letters from years past along with all of the letters we have gotten from friends and family in a large three ring binder (actually, we have had to split them into two three ring binders). It has become an interesting sort of family journal tracking the highs and the lows each year.

If you have been reading my blog you know that this has not been an easy year in many ways and the last quarter of the year has been particularly difficult. I will refer you to other posts for details on that and will focus here on more of a year in review. In spite of the difficulties, we were still quite successful in making many happy memories. Some of the highlights include:

• Strengthening relationships through our home school group; Daniel is somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade now and we are in our second year of more academic classes with our home school group. We meet three Fridays a month for about 6 months of the year. In 2010 he had classes on rockets, weapons, writing, biology, and literature. He also does history with a couple other families once a week and at home we focus on math, spelling and reading in addition to his home school group classes. All in all his education is coming along nicely and the relationships we are building with the other families in our group are priceless

• Two gatherings with the Rutledge Family; In April we spent several days together in Florida at Burt's sister's place and in November we made our traditional trip to Nashville. It was wonderful to all be together. Daniel really enjoys his cousins!

• While we were in Florida we also got to spend a little time with my dad & Jeanie.

• More Michigan vacationing with my family; In May we spent a week in Michigan's Upper Peninsula with my mom & Harold, my brother (Tim) and my niece, Leslie. We found a fabulous cabin to rent and really had a wonderful time. If you want to see pictures you can check them out at our Shutterfly share site.

• Daniel had his first camp experience in July at Michigan Christian Youth Camp (MCYC) and he absolutely loved it. I really had not considered sending him yet but someone at church mentioned it in March and he said he wanted to so we did it and it worked out so well. We are thinking about doing one of the winter camp weekends in January or February.

• We spent a fair amount of time in the summer attending weddings (and photographing a few as well) of former students. One of the highlights for Daniel and I was a trip to Kentucky / Virginia with some good friends for the wedding of Lydia & Mitch Ruter. They got married at Cumberland Gap and the whole trip was really a very special experience.

I know we did many other things but it just is not coming back to me right now and I really want to get this letter out. I pray that whatever your circumstance this Christmas you will find peace, joy and comfort and that you will make the most of every moment you have.

May the Lord bless you and keep you until we meet again!