Christmas Letter 2007

Family and Friends,
How do you start a Christmas letter without using the clichéd openings: “It’s been another year,” “I can’t believe how time has passed/ I can’t believe it’s Christmas time again,” or “During this wonderful season we wanted to let everyone know how our family is.” There just aren’t a lot of creative openings when you send a letter once a year. You know the Bird family though, we will think of something. How about… oh, I guess we already have a full paragraph opening. It’s Christmas 2007!
For those that don’t know I will update everyone on Lori. When we last wrote Lori was in the middle of having her Chemotherapy and doing well despite the treatments. Well, she now visits the doctor only every few months and everything is looking great! She is cancer free, healthy, and growing quickly. The biggest thing the surgery and chemo did was slow her growth. Once the treatments stopped she grew quickly and gained weight back. We know prayers were answered with Lori and have been since the very beginning. Thank you again, to all of you that help and have helped as well as prayed for our family.
I might as well keep the update with Lori going even though it will be chronologically out of order. But what do I care about that. Lori is now in a young age tap and ballet class through the city and is enjoying that. Next summer she wants to play soccer and be like Ty. She just turned 4 on the 7th of December and loves being able to say she is 4. She is also sitting here helping me write this letter.
Ty is a giant among boys even 12 year old boys. There are some boys in our ward that are 12 or just about 12 that Ty is either the same height or a touch taller. I bring this up because has this fascination with being taller than people. He is almost 9 and is basically growing like his dad. Hopefully it won’t be too similar as I stopped growing my sophomore in high school. He enjoys sports and school. He played baseball (check out our youtube video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMxiHDIGFqY ) and soccer this year. I was his coach for baseball and fill in coach for Soccer. The wins came easier in baseball and the losses easier in Soccer but he had fun in both. He has fallen in love with baseball and is debating Soccer and basketball as to which sport he will participate. Ty also is involved in Cub Scouts and likes getting as many things passed off and done as quickly as possible. He will also be starting piano lessons in January.
Michelle is back to being extremely busy now that she had time freed up as Lori is healthy. She is Cub Scout Committee Chair, program putter togetherer, and Relief Society VT coordinator. Michelle also had a great year as a mom. She had her most difficult pregnancy that resulted in an early birth of Bryn Lucy on July 18, 2007.
Bryn is growing as all kids do and we are happy to see her healthy and happy. She gets straight A’s, plays the flute, volunteers at the shelter, and quilts blankets for the cold. She stays as busy as her mom.
I am still at the hotel and do my best to help the family and hope that my contributions add to instead of detract from any growth we have.
Our family joined the 21st Century and started blogging. You can read our Pulitzer Prize winning material at www.zmbird.blogspot.com . There we have updates and pictures and all kinds of Birdtastic things. We hope that each of you have a great Christmas and as Pedro says, “all of your wildest dreams come true” in 2008.
Love the Birds (Zack, Michelle, Ty, Lori, and Bryn) zmbird@sbcglobal.net 661-285-8989