** IMPORTANT NOTE: This is the post for last year. 2018's post follows this one so don't miss it! **

Greetings to our friends and family as we head into 2017!

Another year has swept past and we hope it's been a blessed one for you whether in ups or downs.

We headed north this year through Missouri and on to Michigan. We drove through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.  Over 3000 miles. We visited family and friends. We ate lunch at the restaurant Tartan's mom had her first job and then visited with extended family.  In Michigan we spent New Year's Eve with a sweet family we visited last year- in California! And we spent a (too) short time with a friend of Naomi's from junior high who recently moved from Houston to Michigan. (And  I waited until now to get together with her!)

Previously this year, Tartan Alex graduated with honors from HBU with a double degree in English and Creative Writing. He's taken a short term job as a tutor with the Houston school district.  Kyrie took classes at Lone Star College and is preparing to transfer to The University of Texas at Dallas in the fall. For two weeks in the summer, Kyrie, Abigail and Tartan went to Poland and the Czech Republic with Ballet Excelsior to perform a ballet of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in a variety of venues including a small theatre that had never had a Christian group perform before and where they had to turn people away because it was completely full. Another performance was in a large square in front of a church where many people stopped to watch.  Tartan spent his first couple of days there figuring out how to build the "stone" table and a frame for hanging prop curtains.

Aidan has continued with Boy Scouts and has until September to become Eagle. He completed his project and has just a few merit badges to finish. He is making progress in taekwondo. Though he has his black belt, there are degrees of black belt so he's working towards the next degree. His favorite class is weapons class. They don't fight each other with weapons but learn sequences of moves.

Kayleigh moved up to level 5 in ballet. She's a little young for pointe shoes; that'll likely come next year. However she danced in the annual Dance with a Purpose fundraiser for Ballet Excelsior. She loves ballet and hip hop, but her favorite is tap. Ballet Excelsior and the Excelsior Trainees perform in a Christmas show at Market Street almost every year. Kyrie is in the company and Abigail is in the trainee program. This year was special because Kayleigh got to dance with her tap class at the beginning of the show so all three girls participated. It was an interesting two days. The first night the temperatures were in the low 70s, high 60s. The second night the temperature was hovering around freezing.

Naomi learned a lot about the frustrations of gardening last spring. This year we're going to build an enclosed walk in garden box and hope for better success. She's also enjoyed loom knitting and plans to finish a small blanket and make a hat for Abigail (so she'll give back the one Naomi made for herself).

And now the photos…

 Tartan receives a scouting award in January

About to head to the Father Daughter Dance

T. Alex enjoying the love on his birthday 

Aidan officially receiving his black belt

Kayleigh after her grade 4 and Abi and friends after their level 7 exams

Kayleigh IS the fox (from the Christmas dinner scene in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, though this photo was in our back garden)

Mission trip to Poland & the Czech Republic with Ballet Excelsior

Kyrie depicting Edmund as he makes the decision to obey the White Witch

Tormented by the Queen's crones when she comes to claim Edmund

Charging into battle

 Abigail IS the butterfly

Aidan arranged for the children's wing at church to be painted for his Eagle project

Our annual visit to Renaissance Festival

Dear Family and Friends,

I actually did have a letter for 2017 but my editor did not get back to me with whether it needed any changes, I forgot about it and then it was February! I'll post it with this one anyway, though that'll be in a couple of days. I want to post photos with that one that I don't have access to at the moment.

2017 - what happened this year? The good thing about these posts is that it causes me to look back on the events of the year.

In February, Kayleigh got her braces and Abigail got her driver's permit. Hopefully, she'll get her license in the next month.

March brought a trip to Bulgaria for Tartan, myself, Kyrie and Abigail with Ballet Excelsior. The girls performed in an extended version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Sofia, Stara Zagora, and Varna. Tartan was the sound tech again and I was the photographer. Kyrie and Abigail reprised their roles as Edmund and the butterfly. Tartan also built a garden box for me. I had better success, especially since I was able to put my blueberry bush containers inside the box. My best harvest was from those!

Abigail participated in the homeschool science fair for her biology class in April. She created a model of a butterfly wing and called it ”Layers of Beauty." In May we went down to Corpus Christi for a short but sweet visit with my dad and his wife that included a visit to the beach. At the beginning of June was Kyrie's last performances with Excelsior. I'm not sure how many times between rehearsals and shows she performed as Edmund but she did it each time with energy and emotion that the audience could connect with. Abigail's butterfly was graceful dancing alongside Lucy and Kayleigh's fox led a dance at the Christmas dinner.

At the end of June, another child got braces! Abigail is hoping she won't have to have them for a full 18 months, but we'll just have to see. In July, Aidan traveled without us with the contingent from BSA Sam Houston Area Council to the national jamboree in West Virginia. He had a great time and brought home one of the official tents. I insisted he take pictures so he averaged about one a day that he sent to his dad. His favorite area was the OA Circle where he found his OA lodge name in the brickwork. Finding places where he could charge his electronics was a challenge but he discovered a spot outside the bathrooms near the sinks. So, he'd let his phone charge and he'd help people dump pots of water. He lived up to the Colonneh lodge motto of "cheerful service."

August was a busy month! We got Kyrie settled in to her on-campus apartment, school started for everyone and the following weekend Tartan and I spent a few days in Hamilton, Texas at a vacation house for our anniversary. It was very nice and relaxing but we returned to heavy rainfall from hurricane Harvey and a very busy week helping out families in the neighborhood next to our church who got flooded. We pulled out wet furniture and household items, removed drywall and insulation, and shop-vacuumed a lot of water. Our church served meals and handed out donated clothes, food, personal items, and bottled water.

September was memorable in that Aidan earned his Eagle Scout rank and turned 18! We will have his Court of Honor at the end of January. Tartan Alex was informed that he had a job in Mito, Japan in the spring. He'll be going at the end of March or early April to teach English for at least a year. In October, we visited Kyrie at UTD during Family Day, though we didn't participate in any of the official activities. Her major is Arts and Technology with a focus in Design & Production. She really enjoyed her classes and has made many new friends. She found time to become very involved with UTD TV where she became part of the production crew, doing things like set up and take down and working camera and audio. And she even had the opportunity to do some editing at the end of the
semester and hopes to do more.

November was busy with a lot of rehearsals for DWAP (Dance with a Purpose) and Christmas performances. Abigail is a trainee senior this year and was able to dance with the Ballet Excelsior company. Each year, Excelsior teams with Lifepointe church to do a Christmas show for the public. A dance with three small dancers was requested to perform both at the church (which had limited room) and at Market Street. Since Kayleigh is small, an intermediate level dancer and has a sister who was already going to be involved with the Christmas dances, she was asked to be one of the three. The three girls persevered through many rehearsals and did a superb job at all three performances in December. Abigail danced a duet at the church, performed in several of the dances at Market Street, and danced with company at Faith Bible church on two different weekends. It was an unusually full dance schedule this December!

While two of our vehicles were getting maintenance work done at the same time, Tartan Alex volunteered to go to the ExxonMobil campus to pick up his dad. He was asked by two different security guards if he was an Uber driver and so was born an idea for a temporary career. He soon became a Lyft driver, which has been an interesting experience for him. He's helped people load and unload their groceries. He's driven very talkative passengers and some that are on their phones the entire time. He drove someone from the airport to the hospital- a sobering experience. He's even created Spotify playlists that he tries to match to different passengers. Hopefully by the time he's off to Japan he'll be so sick of driving that he won't mind not having a car in Japan.

Our end of year trip was to Duck Creek Village, Utah. We rented a wonderful cabin where we just hung out together for a week. We made one day trip to Zion National Park where we hiked the Emerald Pools trail. On the way to Utah we stopped by Petrified Forest National Park which seemed like a great place to go to on another trip. Since T. Alex will be in Japan next Christmas, this year’s trip is likely the last time (for a while, at least) that we’ll all be together, traveling and making memories. As a “finale” of sorts, it’s been a really good one.

As always, we hope for a wonderful 2018 for you all! We don't know what the new year holds for us but we know Who holds us in everything.

Thoughts from a Morning Walk

There is a lot wrong with this world we live in. There is the all-too-common violence of theft, assault and even murder of our fellow sojourners that we share space with on this planet. There is built-in bias in our society and our workplaces and our schools, and there are predators in Hollywood, government, and at the corner grocery store that harass and abuse those who are weaker or less advantaged that they are. There is a lack of civility that manifests itself in hate-filled posts on social media toward those who don’t hold the same political, religious, or intellectual worldview, and there are those whose lack of regard for anything other than self lead them to operate heavy, potentially lethal equipment at unsafe speeds while talking on their phones and ignoring everything else around them. We live in a world where world leaders publicly behave in childish ways, and engage in a pattern of public brinksmanship that risks the lives and futures of those they should be protecting and serving.

However, despite the evident brokenness of the world around us, we can find things to be thankful for: When I woke up this morning and turned on the tap at the bathroom sink, clean and drinkable water flowed forth. When I stepped outside, I breathed fresh air and didn’t have to wear a mask like they do in some parts of the world. If I’m hungry, I have a choice of restaurants and fast food places within easy driving distance, or if I want to make my own breakfast there is a grocery store less than a mile away that has any ingredient that I might need. I can pick up my phone and be instantly connected to people I know despite the fact that they live thousands of miles away, or I can listen to whatever music, news, or commentary I feel like at the time. If I want to know something, I can “ask Alexa” and she can (sometimes) provide me with exactly what I was looking for.

I am thankful for the many blessings that I experience in the midst of such a broken and flawed world. This morning, my soul resonates with the words that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”

The Didn’t-Even-Make-It-Before-Epiphany 2015-2016 Letter

 

As has been usual the past few years, our Christmas letter has become the new year’s-looking-back letter. Join us in taking a look at the past year:

January

We spent the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 in Disney World in Florida. It was a great family time. We stayed on property in our camper and visited all the parks. Meeting Hiro and Baymax was a highlight.

February was Dance Mission Preview by Ballet Excelsior and the dance school. This is an annual fundraiser in which dancers levels 5 and up participate.  Aidan had an ecology project (Alaska tundra) and an insect project (termite) for biology class..

Tartan Alex turned 21 in March. There was Project Dance Houston and then in April, Project Dance New York.

May

Tartan and Naomi celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary a few months early on board the Oasis of the Seas. We had a wonderful time away from it all in the Caribbean.

Also- Kyrie graduated! And, she passed her level 8 exam for ballet.

 

June was the end of year Excelsior School of Dance performance called Awaken. Kyrie danced as a company apprentice with Ballet Excelsior.

And also Bug’s 10th birthday (double digits!). She had an outdoors\camping theme. Instead of cake, we had Dutch oven crumble and s’mores!                                                                               

July was a trip to see Grandpa at the same time my sister was visiting on July 4th weekend.(Tartan’s birthday!)

August and September were birthday months. Kyrie turned 18 and Aidan, 16! Naomi became a year older as well.

October saw another visit to Grandpa & Grandma’s. Abigail celebrated her 14th birthday at the end of the month.

In November, there was Thanksgiving and our annual visit to Renaissance Festival the day after. We added something new this year- we went out Thursday evening and stayed in the RenFest campground in the camper trailer until Saturday morning. Tartan spent two weeks in Phoenix at a training class. Aidan joined an Order of the Arrow ceremony team this year, and Tartan finally got a picture of him as Meteu, the medicine man. Abigail performed at the Bay Area Christmas Market with BET (Ballet Excelsior Trainees).

(do you see the owl?)

Finally we reach December. We spent two weeks on the road to and from California.

We visited friends about to move away and just spent time hanging out, watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens and visiting the Mouse. Kyrie got emotional spending time in the place her hero, Walt Disney, actually spent a great deal of time. On the way home we visited the Grand Canyon, so now we can all say we’ve seen it!

(Christmas eve pajamas)

 

That brings us to a new year and new adventures. Tartan Alex will be graduating from college, Kyrie will be taking college classes at Lone Star, and Kyrie and Abigail plan to go to Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic on a mission trip with Ballet Excelsior in the summer. Aidan continues on his Scouting adventures and hopefully will make progress towards Eagle and a black belt in taekwondo. Naomi hopes to have better success with her garden and Kayleigh will be a sixth grader next fall and will move up to youth group at church.

Wishing you all much joy and happiness in 2016! God bless!

The Colliers

The After Christmas, After New Year Letter for 2014

Dear Family and Friends, 

As has happened in the past, we're a little slow in getting the annual update out. Our excuse is that we were getting ready for a Disney World trip and then we were on the trip for the first week of January. It was a great trip and everyone had a good time. A few pictures will be posted to Facebook (if you're not on FB and really want to see those, let me know and I can send you a Dropbox link).

We all got a year older. We're a year closer to Aimee, as I try to remind myself. It was a good year overall.

Tartan Alex is now a junior at HBU. He was able to go to Oxford during the summer as part of a school group to take a class on British literature. They stayed in Oxford and visited various locales, including London. He was pretty chuffed to go to the pub where the Inklings used to meet and to visit the White Horse that inspired Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse". He continues to be able to find one class each semester in which he'll get a "B" in the midst of this "A's". He will turn 21(!) this coming March. But don't worry- he figured out he doesn't like alcohol while at the Oxford pubs. He is also the only one in the family who decided to edit his paragraph in this letter.

Kyrie is cruising through her senior year (my word, not hers). This past year she danced at Project Dance Houston and Project Dance New York with BET (Ballet Excelsior Trainees) and then in the summer she went back to New York with a group from church to participate in SpreadTruth NY. Their mission is to spread the truth of Jesus through vacation Bible schools, basketball & soccer camps, and being available to talk to people in and around Central Park. Kyrie was involved in the vacation Bible school at Brooklyn Tabernacle and found it to be an amazing experience. In the spring, she took her ballet exam for level 7 and moved into level 8. No decisions have been made about where she'll be going next year for college.

 

Aidan is a freshman in high school this year, though he may look at you blankly for a moment if you ask him what grade he's in. He is taking two classes outside home this year: speech and biology. He continues to be involved in his scout troop and with OA (Order of the Arrow). He was on staff for Webelos Woods (a campout where troops introduce cub scouts to boy scouts) and he was able to attend the last winter camp at Camp Strake. The campground has been sold and a new property is being worked on that is further away, but not surrounded by urban and suburban areas. He moved through several belts this year in taekwondo and is currently a red belt. Next is red tip, brown and then black. Shortly after his 15th birthday, he obtained his driver's permit so the driving lessons have commenced!

Abigail, a seventh grader, was excited to be able to join BET this year and danced in their Christmas program in Market Street in The Woodlands the weekend before Christmas along with Kyrie. She took her ballet exam last spring for level 6 and is in level 7. She was the only one examining at that level so she had to do the exam all by herself! She of course passed with flying colors. She is also taking a couple of the level 8/9 classes this year as well as the usual slate of classes: modern, hip hop, and conditioning. The school class she is most enthused about is Japanese. She is using a program called Human Japanese to assist her in learning the language as her dream is someday to live in Japan. She is a big fan of K-Pop and just used Christmas money to order a concert hoodie of her favorite band, Exo.

Kayleigh is a fourth grader. At her recent well child exam we discovered that she is actually 50th percentile for height. This may not seem like a big deal, but for a child that has hovered between 5th and 20th percentile since she was a toddler, that's a gain. She's still pretty light weight but everything is probably going into her stretching out. She enjoys reading, watching movies, playing on the Wii or computer, and when she can arrange it, playing games with her siblings (and sometimes parents, too). One of her favorite games is any variation of the ABC game (ie. animals: the first person thinks of an "A" animal like alligator, the next person a "B" animal and so on). We've done anything mentioned in the Bible, movies, actors/actresses, characters in books or movies, cities, and I'm not sure how many more.

Tartan and I celebrated our 24th anniversary in Galveston this year. It was an incredible experience, well above what we were expecting. We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast and Tartan tried to get us reservations at a restaurant that had been highly recommended: Rudy and Paco's. It looked like they were fully booked through the entire weekend, but we stopped by the restaurant to see if they could squeeze us in. They were closed until the evening, but then we met the owner (Paco) as we turned to leave. He treated us like we were long, lost friends! He made sure we would get seats at the bar if a table couldn't be arranged and then he personally gave us a mini-tour of the 1894 Opera House where they were setting up for a sold-out concert. We did get a table- someone had to cancel and Paco made sure that we were immediately called and given the table. The food was amazing and we enjoyed looking at all the signed photos of famous people who have been to the restaurant. We were even treated to dessert, courtesy of Paco. All that's not even the most amazing part, though. We were at one of the spots for the Art Walk that was going on when Tartan got a call- would we like to go to the concert at the Opera House? Yes, the sold-out concert. It was Aaron Neville and Dr. John. We said yes and next thing we know, we're having champagne in a box seat listening to some great music.

Well, that's a small snapshot of our past year. We pray for you and ourselves that this coming year finds us doing what God has in mind for us and trusting Him with that. May you know the peace and joy of Jesus this year and always.

A Disney dinner at Teppan Edo

Letter for 2013

The joy of the Lord is our strength. 

2013 was a better year in the Collier household. Honestly, just about anything would have been better, but God has been merciful to us this year for which we are thankful. This letter was started before Christmas, but somehow it didn't quite make it out until now.  

Most of the changes and events in our home as usual involve the children.  

Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. 

Tartan Alex is a sophomore at HBU. He finished his freshman year well, getting on the Dean's list. He also won first place in the Danny Lee Lawrence Writing Awards for creative fiction. After working over the summer at WalMart, he was happy to get back to school. This summer it looks like he will be traveling to Oxford for a two-week seminar. I look forward to telling you a little about that next year. 

Kyrie and I went to New York in the spring for her to dance in Times Square for Project Dance with the Ballet Excelsior Trainees. She got to experience a little of what it's like to be part of a traveling dance group. She had to keep everything in one carry-on bag, including her costumes.  She learned to travel light which was a great precursor to her traveling with Ballet Excelsior on their Japan tour.  She didn't dance but was part of their stage crew. It was an incredible experience for her; take a look at the previous blog posting for some of what she experienced. Her other big moment this year was getting her driver's license and being able to drive what we oddly call the "Goldberry" (it's a metallic orange color, and the name was inspired by Gus' car on the TV show Psych). Her many hours of dance at the studio include ballet level 7, tap, modern, conditioning, a couple of level 8/9 classes, and, of course, BET, the trainee program. 

Aidan added TaeKwonDo to his schedule this year. As of December, he is an Orange belt. In Scouts, he achieved the Star rank, and was also inducted into the Order of the Arrow. Next he works on achieving the Life Scout rank and then on to Eagle. Besides school at home, he is taking one outside class: junior high science. He is doing well with that.  In September, he'll be 15 and old enough to get his driver's permit. I'm so glad Tartan teaches that subject! 

Abigail is twelve, not quite a teenager, but she seems to think she is one anyway. She is dancing in level 6/7 so she has several classes with Kyrie this year. Apparently, their teachers find their sister dynamic really interesting (and perhaps entertaining). For school this year, she is working on her own Sonlight core which she is finding to be challenging. She is working on balancing that with her busy dance schedule and her need for "socialization". Besides ballet, she dances tap, modern and hip hop and takes the conditioning class. She is an assistant for a couple of beginning dance classes. 

Kayleigh is a laid-back eight year old. She seems to find her school load interesting but not too time-consuming yet. Using Simply Music, she's been learning a few songs on the piano, and Music Ace helps her learn music theory.  She's Grade 2 in ballet, so for the first time she has two ballet classes a week. She also continues with tap and hip hop and has been able to take the drama class at Excelsior. Her other interests include Build-a-Bear (including her own collection as well as the online games), reading (the Percy Jackson series and the Sisters Grimm series are her current faves), and recently she added loom knitting. 

I do often think about what Aimee would be doing now; what her interests would be and how she felt about things. How I wish I could know, but someday I'll get to know all about her and what we're missing now will seem like nothing.  And I can say that with confidence not because of myself, but because of Jesus. Happy birthday, Jesus - and say happy birthday to Aimee for us. 

We have also finally made the first disbursement from Aimee's Memorial Fund. Thank you again to all who contributed to it. We chose to give to Compassion's disaster relief fund. The massive typhoon that struck the Philippines did not severely impact the child we sponsor there, but it did many other Compassion partner organizations and the families they assist. We have sponsored Neil since before he could write his own letters and now he's 16. 

We pray blessings for you all this year, whatever it may bring. 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

Love, The Collier Family