"The Captain" and "Queen Bee"

You may have noticed from the photos that we didn't add a baby this year--hopefully that will all change by next Christmas.;) It's still been a busy year, however, with three very active toddlers (two of them are "red-heads" and the other "acts like one", according to Heart) and with more traveling for The Captain than ever before.:(
The Captain was promoted to a Director level at the bank last year and leads a 4 person team of analysts, writes research on the CMBS market and has been all over the US (and the world--Europe and Asia this past year) where he meets with clients and presents his research and market views. He may be heading to the Middle East (Dubai) this year. How has this affected Queen Bee, you might be asking? It's given her greater motivation to start saving pennies so we can do something else in the future! The Captain is still serving as 1st counselor to the bishop and even sings in the ward choir (along with Heart and River). He sang in a beautiful quartet in church on Christmas Eve.
Queen Bee finds more meaning daily to the principle of "whosoever will save his (or her) life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his (or her) life for my sake shall find it." (Matt. 16:25) What an amazing, true principle taught us by Lord. It takes great courage at times to live by, but I have found I am more "fulfilled" when I exercise my faith enough to lose "me". Life is one great balancing act, though, and without a little time daily for personal scripture study, prayer and pondering/journaling things never go as well. You'll get a pretty good clue as to what Queen Bee's up to as you read about the children! Her biggest source of support over the past couple of years has been through the Above Rubies (magazine). Please check out the website at www.aboverubies.org