Year End Holiday Newsletter

Notable Illness:
Kenzie contracts mono. Shocker — Brig comes down with mono, too. How did that happen?

Cool Places Visited:
San Francisco. Great city, good memories. Museums, buses, seals, crab, fortune cookies, cable cars, etc.

Famous sayings of 2006:
Hug me. Hug me now.
—Good Boy

Love you more than a gazilion twix bars
Soooo amazing, soooo wonderful, sooooo keep on keepin’ on…
—Meghan

I like a plethora of…
I’m pretty sure that guy was beat up a lot in high school…
—B. Gomer

Hey, ‘lil mommy
Brig, Brig, Brig, Brig, Brig, Brig, Brig, Brig. (…ad nauseum)
—Kenzer

Huh, huh?
Sometimes I like to wear stretchy pants when no one is looking.
—ld

Most Pleasant Surprise and Unexpected Blessing for 2006:
Brig Gomer Arnold and here’s why: He is kind and polite and easy in his skin. He is smart, funny and attentive to others' needs. He is affable and confident and aware of his power to lead and influence. And he is spiritual, in a Spencer W/J Golden Kimball kind of way. He uses all of these gifts well; in fact, he uses them better than anyone the parental-in-laws have ever known. But we’ll stop right there as we don’t want his A.S.S.* to grow any bigger. Suffice it to say, we love him.
     *Arnett/Arnold Self-Assured Syndrome

Awards earned:
Most dumb computer award:
Bestowed by fam on lil’ Mommy.

Most awkward moment award:
Bestowed on ld when at the dinner table in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation he blurts out to FSIL: So, you’re not into pornography are you?

Tender moments:
Hand holding over a baked potato.

Most important lesson learned in 2006:
If your computer starts to smoke and smells burnt this means it will probably blow up.

Hero of the year:
1st Place:
Janny for retrieving my hard drive from my blown up defunct computer and restoring all 3,000 files.
2nd Place:
Janny for giving me his old laptop.

Fondest Wish for the year 2007:
ld buying me a new laptop.

Profound books read:
(Notice I’m not listing everything good that was read, only the profound stuff. That makes the list a lot shorter.)
Some stuff by Kate Chopin, especially the Awakening
How People Change by Alan Wheelis
RS Handbook

This year’s can’t live without gadget:
TiVo

New family craze:
Blogging!
Visit us at: csarnett / ldsquared / my blog is better than yours

New family Cheer:
(This replaces our old one on account of Brig joining the fam.)
Old Cheer:
Mom and Dad, Meg, Kenz and Jantz
on the dance floor of life
Let’s get out there and dance!

New Cheer:
Mom and Dad, Meg, Kenz and Jantz—
And Brig.
Let's all do a jig (everyone does a jig)
We’ve got courage
Like a lion (this is where Janny roars loudly)
So let’s all keep a tryin’
Family Alliance Unite! (This is where we all unite our fists into one)
(I like our new cheer on account of it’s so deep and has layers upon layers of symbolism.)

Additional Family Motto:
We still like Hard is Good but this year we are adopting Sprinkle Joy as well. So we will be sprinklin’ some joy on all that hard stuff.

2006 has been a good year. It found us still pluggin’ along. Jantzen is much happier and finding strength he thought he’d lost. Our lil’ missionary Meghan is doing wonderful, awesome, sooooo much, all good as her emails and letters attest and Mackenzie found her true love, Brig. We are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and we love love love each other. To all our dear extended fam and friends, we love you, too. Happy Holidays.

cs & ld