Merry Christmas 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

While we can’t say things are exactly slowing down around here, we do feel like we’ve fallen into a pretty chill rhythm of life after 8 consecutive years of babies, new jobs, and moves. We’re pleased to report that we have no new major news to report in 2012.

That’s not to say that life is quiet. We’ll remember 2012 as the year Josh graduated from being “Baby” and officially became a Fox brother. This year, he was jumped into the gang and can officially run as fast, hit as hard, eat as much, and smell as bad as the other boys. There is now constant and relentless teasing, mocking, racing, and roughhousing, but Josh seems to be able to hold his own well enough given that he’s still half the size of the other two. Joshie is enjoying his last year of preschool and took a brief foray into soccer this fall before deciding it wasn’t for him.

Drew is in 2nd grade and the theme of his year has been athletics. He discovered basketball last spring and soccer in the fall and now happily goes from one season to the next without a break in between. He’s a model citizen at school, and after school he does things like free-hand maps of the world for fun, so when he’s not playing hard, he’s geeking out pretty hard.

Cade is in 3rd grade and the highlight of his year is that he’s in a classroom that is piloting iPads for each student, leading to a relentless campaign for an iPad at home (thanks, school district!). Cade took up guitar last year and has built up quite a repertoire. Aaron is teaching himself piano, so the two of them enjoy jam sessions when they are able to master the same selected songs (mostly Imperial March or Carol of the Bells). Cade’s sport is swimming, and this summer he completed his first Kids Triathlon. We thought he might expire before crossing the finish line, but he did it!

Aaron is still at Dell and has mastered his role there such that he has enough free time to coach Josh’s soccer team, lead Cade’s Cub Scout den, serve as Head Cheerleader for Drew’s basketball team, and manage two fantasy football teams. He’s also running a half marathon in January.

Cara survived her first year as Executive Director of The Christi Center, an amazing Austin nonprofit that provides free grief support services. Even with her increased job responsibilities, she’s been able to maintain the usual volunteer commitments (Cub Scout leader, room mom, Sunday School teacher, Junior League of Austin, gala committee for school district Foundation, etc.). Cara is running a half marathon on a daily basis.

We squeezed in a fair amount of travel this year (skiing in New Mexico for Spring Break, Chicago area (twice) for weddings of cousins, and a planned post-Christmas trip to Disneyworld. We made some updates to the house (visitors welcome anytime!) and begrudgingly committed to a new minivan when ours conked out prematurely this summer. We’re feeling pretty middle aged, but we can’t complain – life is very, very good for the Foxes.

We hope the same is true for all of you, and we wish you a wonderful holiday season and a new year filled with all of the blessings you deserve.

Love, The Foxes
Aaron, Cara, Cade, Drew and Josh

PS - To get our awesome status updates all year long, find us on Facebook.

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