Nurse Graham: Our 2014 Christmas Letter

Greetings Family and Friends,

This was an exciting year. There was sending off a missionary, a high school graduation, camping, hiking, running, boat building, adjusting to an empty-nest. So much was done and there is so much to be grateful for.

February 12th (or something close to that), Katelyn left for the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. She has been called to serve in the Tempe, AZ mission. She will be home August, 2015. She has had some great experiences and some not-so-great experiences, but she recognizes that all experience can be for her good. Her current area is a little town called Ajo. She is teaching mostly single, older ladies in that area. She is learning a little Spanish and enjoying all of the javelinas that run around town. Javelinas are wild pigs that can be a little mean. We miss her but are grateful for her to have this opportunity.

Carson graduated in June. He took up cedar-strip boat building and finished a beautiful cedar-strip kayak and a cedar-strip canoe (both of which are for sale). He decided to gently break us into empty-nesting by attending a local college, North Idaho College. The parents decided he needed some away-from-home experience and insisted he live in the dorms at NIC. This has worked out very well. Carson also made the wrestling team as a walk-on. That was very exciting. He had his first college win at a tournament in Great Falls where he wrestled unattached since he is red-shirting this year.

Heather had an exciting year as she was selected with 3 other local school nurses to participate in the Johnson and Johnson School Health Leadership program sponsored by Rutgers University and Johnson and Johnson. She spent a week in July in New Brunswick, NJ attending the Institute. Because of her team's work at the Institute, they have been able to successfully implement "clinic in a box" immunization concept which brings immunization clinics to local schools. Their work has been recognized and her team has been asked to be presenters at the National School Nurse conference in June, 2015. Heather also ran her first marathon this past year. Not sure if it counted as an exciting experience, but she also didn't rule out running another marathon in the future.

Dave continues to work on some exciting projects with Advanced Input Systems. One of his projects was helping Flir develop a night-scope for nighttime hunting. Field testing was completed back in Georgia doing some nighttime hog hunting. The scope is now available for purchase; sadly, Dave gets no royalties or kickbacks for building the scope. Dave did want Heather to outshine him in athletic endeavors so he decided to participate in the "I Made the Grade" bike ride. It is a bike ride up the Lewiston grade--a winding, twisting 5 mile climb. It was a completely miserable day, weather-wise, but Dave had a good ride. His next goal is to ride Going to the Sun Road in Glacier NP next summer. Dave and his dad had a bucket-list elk hunt in Canada in September. He came back with a monster.

One exciting adventure was our Spring Break trip to Venice Beach, CA. Let's just say that was culturally-enlightening. We did have good weather and the boys were able to take some surfing lessons. We also got our roller coaster fill as we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain and rode the coasters so much that by the end of the day we all felt a little up-side down. Another highlight was our back-country hiking trip to St. Joe Lake. The hike was beautiful, but the fishing was terrible. The boys said we don't have to do that again (Heather might have done a happy dance with that declaration). We piggybacked a trip to Glacier on to the St. Joe Lake adventure. We were lucky enough to have Rich and Charlene join us for that. The boys enjoyed more fishing and we saw more bears than I have ever seen in Glacier.

As we wind down 2014 we are grateful for the good times and blessings we have received this year. We are looking forward to 2015 and the adventures that it will certainly hold for us.