2018 Review

Hurricanes Florence, Michael, and Nora Grace Zwahlen all converged on the Zwahlen home in Chapel Hill in 2018.  Sprinkle in a lice outbreak and it’s been an eventful year!

Nora joined our family on February 21st happy and healthy, for which we are grateful.  Michelle and Nora have been spending a lot of time...ok, all of their time together over the last year as she goes from little baby, to crawling, and now cruising.  She genuinely is the best baby and has a great ability to help grumpy people feel happy as they serve her.

Despite the baby, Abby’s senior status among the children remains intact.  Channeling her father’s inner drama queen, she was selected as Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for her school play.  She still loves to read and works to develop her writing talent through writing stories and taking writing classes. Abby’s sense of justice continues to emerge but in more productive ways as she turned envy over her brother’s Cub Scout award banquet into planning a girl’s achievement night awarding crazy socks to each girl for their hard work in their church goal-setting program.

Sam chose to follow the example of Jesus Christ this year and was baptized by his father.  He joined Cub Scouts after his birthday and he and Roy have spent many Sundays working through his Bobcat and Wolf awards, enlisting a neighbor’s help for the Pinewood Derby (where he won 3rd place), and preparing for the family scout camp in Boone, NC.  He still loves art and his art classes and will happily delay playing video games to create a cardboard box monster or a costume for an excited sibling. He has also kept his humor, which is best exemplified by his Halloween costume ‘the Underwear Wolf.’

Lydia completed Kindergarten and was ecstatic, as she is about most things, to start 1st grade.  She wants to explore as much as possible, joining her brother in art classes and insisting on doing a solo in the school talent show.  Like most girls her age, she has fallen in love with the Greatest Showman. Perhaps less like most girls her age, she also loves the velociraptor from Jurassic World.  Lydia loves to read books to and plan games for her siblings and is animated enough that everyone is entertained by her.

Andrew has started preschool and has taken up the post of senior kid in charge with he and Nora at home most of the day.  He loves sitting next to Nora in the car, sings to her, holds her hand, and helps his mother however he can. He is focused on learning to read, swim, and “run really fast” to keep up with his older siblings.  Andrew loves to do outside obstacle courses, give us math quizzes, ride his big boy bike, and make creations with Legos, playdoh or paint.

Roy and Michelle are just trying to keep up with it all.  We are trying to spend as much time as possible with Roy’s parents before they leave for two years on a church humanitarian mission to Amman, Jordan in January.  Roy received a promotion at work with a new, longer title. He loves his work, his church service, and playing guitar to relax. Michelle continues teaching preschool, working with the teenage girls at church, working on house improvement projects, being involved at the school, and Nora goes along for the ride for it all.  We are grateful for each of you and wish you joy in 2019.