**MERRY CHRISTMAS**
Here is our version of the home-made Christmas card... we hope you enjoy looking back on this past whirlwind year we've had with us!
Remember all the excitement and celebration surrounding Nate and I finally making it to the altar?? Yep, that is how we started off the year, and I like this picture because yes, it is a seal of a deal, but to me it is also a demonstration of having survived our adventurous, tumultuous, exciting and often brutal courtship! Thanks Chul and Kev for your gift of friendship and wisdom for us during those days that enabled us to make it to this point! And Thanks Rach, for meeting us there at the altar, encouraging me, and standing by me at this "hinge moment" that started our year.
We were truly blessed this summer to be able to spend weekends up at the Kaiser Cottage on Lake Windermere. Here we spent a fabulous weekend with Nate's parents building that lovely retaining wall we're proudly posing in front of. The cottage is a great place, because it takes a lot of work, but you have such a sense of satisfaction at the end of each day to take a dip in the lake and lay out on the dock, watching the sun set and breathing clean air. It is where Nate and I have discovered we refuel best... it is our solace and we give thanks for this place always.
And because Marriage wasn't a big enough endeavour for Nate and I to undertake this year, we thought we'd take on the challenge of "purchasing a home" which in Calgary is no easy task! Thankfully we had the gift of Mum to always encourage, to be excited with me on this our "possession day" even when everyone backed out of helping us move, even when I discovered that our white tile floor ended up being pink tile floor, and even when I dumped the brown sugar EVERYWHERE upon unpacking it, and ended up in a big, teary, overwhelmed mess on the pinkish kitchen floor! It was truly a gift find the perfect house, and to have Mum there to remind us how perfect it is. We've since really grown fond of our first house and the sense of togetherness it gives us to have a spot to land after our busy days that take us away from each other for 8 hours or more. Rather than "flip" it to make fast bucks, we've decided to keep this place and let it sustain us as we work for the fast bucks at the office each day. We love it and the potential it holds to welcome our children when we decide to begin that challenge!
And we've also discovered that being married means sharing in each other's passions. Nate's passion being Stampede in the summer. I recall protesting at the stampede in years past, but this year I indulged him, and we had a great time kickin' it, "cowboy style". Sometimes it is more fun if you can't beat em, then to join em. Ofcourse, I wouldn't be caught dead in shit kickers, so I giddyaped in stylish high heels :)
We made it!!!!!!!! This is our Sixth Month Anniversary Pic, in our new backyard with our neighbors trees in all their splendor! We actually call it our 4 month picture, because we have tried to block the first 2 months of marriage from our minds as they were unduly stressful and fraught with arguements, disappoints, and tears made incredibly huge and insurmountable due to the BC pill I was on, messing with my previously harmious hormones. After being told off by Dr. Dunn for not seeing her earlier, and switching to alternate methods of BC (no glove no love baby!), we have since found wedded bliss... that is, until I wipe my hands on the dish cloth as opposed to the hand cloth, or until Nate cleans everything in the bathroom, except the toilet (like I'm the one that pees all over the rim?!) We're both passionate people and that makes our fights strong, but the gift in that is our love and determination to do better and to learn is stronger :)
Who's this who's skunked my spot as the youngest and cutest girl in the fam?! HAHA! Our trip to visit G&G this year was especially special due to our ability to run away to Page Moss and be with you and re-connect, and re-evaluate, and feel ourselves and at home. It is always a gift to be with your family, as your children are happy, and you and Kev have a wonderfully grounded, earthy sense about you that draws Nate and I in like a good hug. Thanks for our cocooning times there, we learned and grew and had a blast!
And here is Nate, drunk on the realization that he is not the only one in the room with a double chin ;)
We had such fun with Naomi and Simon, and while we can't wait to start our own family, it was great to get our desire to hang out with kids, out of our system in England... what fun it was to just sit and watch Naomi watch the world and relish her wonderment... and ofcourse it was too much fun actually playing with Simon. Swords and battles and good guys and bad guys and dungeons, and dragons, and superman capes... we could barely 
keep up but we SO wanted to! There is nothing so entertaining, and exhausting as the imagination of a 4 year old... when did we forget how to play whilel growing up? We both left Page Moss lane inspired by Simon to "leap" more in life...
I had the opportunity with work this summer to take a couple trips out to Ottawa to meet with some the government depts out there to get my security clearances and it was such a pleasure to tour the capital buildings. To see something so old and staid and unchanging in my own country! Living in Alberta, change happens so quickly in our oil rich country that if you blink you miss it and you find yourself out of breath looking back over each year in our boom that seems like a marathon run. I loved the sense of time, and pride, and desire, I got from touring the grounds.
Nate also started a new job this year as a market analyst for Trans Alta, an electricity company here in Calgary. Here he had the opportunity to tour a wind farm TA owns down by Pincher Creek. Amazing technology and I believe a great mix of Art and Energy stretched across the prairies. While some don't, I love the sight of wind farms along the highways, a thumb in the face to this oil rich land we live in! While Nate and I are both doing well and enjoying work right now, we are chomping at the bit to find a little business that will allow us to strike out on our own and put all our business sense to good use... let these jobs pass... we are dreaming of so much more!
"Whatchu Talkin Bout Willis?!" Our pleasure has increased by leaps and bounds this last month with the addition of Willis to our family. Our little scottish fold is full of personality and love and is even now fast asleep on his back in my lap, paws batting at my arms every now and then... what a suck! Our little precious however, was enemy #1 this past week, after starting a new habit. Peeing on our bed!? (Could this be Zeke's protege!?) So we now have been relegated to keeping our bedroom door closed, after washing our bedding nearly daily last week! What a rascal! But we love him...
And that leaves us here! Our very first Kaiser Family Christmas Photo! We'll miss you this Christmas and look forward to our next beer shared together! But these photos and musings come to you with much love and prayers for the desires you have and the challenges you will face this coming year. Please keep in touch...
much much love,
Shar and Nate
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