2008 Christmas Letter

Greetings!

We hope all of you are having a wonderful year and a warm holiday season. 2008 will be our last full year in Georgia, and we have had some interesting stories and good times to share from this year’s southern exposure.

We’ll start with the family member that you really want to know about … Fifi de Cat. She continues to protect us from any unwanted varmints, including a lizard that snuck into the house in the spring. She enjoys going outside in the evenings, and sleeping in Graham’s room during the day.

Tess is a boisterous three years old. She is learning her colors, how to write her numerous first names, and loves to sing and make art. She is taking ballet and tap dance lessons and working very hard for her big recital on May 23rd. She celebrated her 3rd birthday in Bath with a “Dora the Explorer“themed party and lots of family and friends. Grandma Lynn gave Tess three Disney princess dress costumes that she has used for many occasions. For Halloween she was Snow White, and during our trip to Disney World, she went to the park in costume every day. We went to breakfast with the Disney princesses, and she was so excited that she stood, jumped, and shook in her chair whenever a princess was near. She was too overwhelmed to eat for most of the meal. After meeting Snow White, she said that she “needs a bird and a flower,” later she would only answer to “Princess Snow White,” and asked, “When are we going to my castle?” She is still adjusting to her current non-royal life away from “her” kingdom.

Graham is a first grader at St. Mary on the Hill School. Always the stylish dresser, he likes to wear the school’s uniform with a tie. His favorite subjects are Math and Computer Lab. He likes knights, going fishing, and building toy airplanes. In the spring, he was excited to go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. He has joined cub scouts, and is looking forward to a pack campout on USS Yorktown Aircraft Carrier. He is riding a two wheel bicycle, taking ice hockey and piano lessons. This summer, he rode his first big rollercoaster at Six Flags. He played soccer for the Ft. Gordon Tornadoes, and played his first season of t-ball for the Royals. He celebrated his 7th birthday with a dark knight’s castle cake and his classmates at the Jump Zone indoor play area. For Halloween, Graham chose to be a knight, this worked out well because his school allowed students to dress as their favorite saint. He went as St. Michael the Archangel (patron saint of warriors).

Angie has been able to make volunteering into an Olympic event. She is active in several church programs, helps out the Fort Gordon Service Club, teaches English, and is involved with Graham’s class. She focuses her time on the kids’ activities, and works as librarian at Immaculate Conception School. She has grown the school’s media center by holding book fairs and a pancake breakfast. She has taken golf lessons, but she is yet to be seen on Augusta National. She is waiting till the Masters in April. She also trained for and ran her first 5K running race in the fall!

Erik is still enjoying his work with the Army, and is expecting orders to move us to Heidelberg, Germany next summer. He is gaining experience in the courtroom, and likes advising the commanders he works for. He continues running for fun, and took ten minutes off his personal best time at a half marathon in October. He’s happily rooting for our Ball State Football Cardinals this bowl season.

With our upcoming move, it might be tricky to call or snail mail us for a while, but you can always contact us via email (angela.hendrickson@us.army.mil or erik.hendrickson@us.army.mil.) We are also working on a family blog http://hoosiervagabonds.blogspot.com/. We just began so it still needs quite a bit of tweaking.

Happy Holidays!

Erik, Angie, Graham and Tess Hendrickson