This year for my birthday, we took family photos, recreating a photoshoot we loved from 2015. As you can see, the kids have grown up, and Scott and I are growing old. Life rolls on. The boys have shot up like the walnut trees we planted when they were little, and we are grandparents now, which brings us such joy.

The birth of baby JJ this past February was very healing for our family. We so appreciate all your prayers and love and are so incredibly thankful God blessed Lacy and Jake with another baby boy after taking baby Benjamin to heaven in 2021. After several hard years, 2022 has been a year of restoration.

Lacy and Jake are loving being a family of four with Lily and JJ. Cami and Drew are also four strong with their precious girls, Kara and Abby. Drew accepted a new job with the agricultural company Helena this year, and Kara graduated from preschool and began kindergarten. Abby misses her big sister during the day but enjoys having her mama all to herself.

Luke likes his privacy and is doing great in the Army. It looks like he will be heading for a new duty station along with his little family somewhere outside of California in 2023. John is out of high school now and has become quite the world traveler. He spent the summer salmon fishing in Alaska and then backpacked through Europe, Egypt, and Morroco in the fall.

Photos tell it better than I can, so here are snapshots from his travels. Our adopted son James did the Europe part with John and then came home. James is joining the Army in January, and John is all signed up for EMT school since he’s interested in joining Scott, now working for Sac Metro Fire Department.

This is probably our biggest news of the year; Scott has returned to flying helicopters. He loves his new job with Sac Metro and is trying to get our boys to become flight medics so they can fly with him.

Scott also continues to coach football. He was able to be Garry’s defensive coordinator this year, which was so much fun for all of us. Garry played linebacker and running back, which meant that our son-in-law Jake Winship was his offensive coach since Jake is also a freshman coach along with Scott at Sutter High School.

Garry loves being in high school and is busy playing sports and acting as class president. He was also the freshman prince. Because his freshman football games were on Thursday nights, Garry is the kid in the white shirt on the left end during homecoming here under Friday night lights.

This is Joey’s senior year. It’s bittersweet to say goodbye to football. He loves the sport and has done well as a linebacker playing varsity for all four years. We will miss watching number 54 on the field. Joey was a team captain and carried Sutter’s hit-or-sit flag through an undefeated season. The Huskies lost in playoffs but left a mark in their new San Joaquin Section. We are proud of our amazing Sutter Huskies and coaches. Our small town of Sutter is a special place with a high school football program that brings a lot of expectation and excitement to our community. I love how the horses still run, the flags fly during the National Anthem, and our town feels like family.

Joey has spent four years of high school with Emilee by his side. These seniors survived the covid years, with Emilee graduating early and taking college courses and Joey finishing up high school online while working and playing sports. Joey is now a varsity soccer goalie and can’t wait for rugby to begin in January. Joey is also an avid hunter and feeds the family, which we appreciate.

I’m so thankful Garry and Christian are back to regular school. The pandemic lockdown was tough. Christian has discovered he loves playing rugby, but at the beginning of this year’s football season was sidelined with a serious injury.

The week after this photo was taken during football camp in July, Christian was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after badly breaking his left arm at practice. Fortunately, he’s right-handed and was able to start school before getting his hard cast in August.

He wore a cast through October and still has a splint, which is handy since he discovered archery after joining 4-H. In archery, the kids have to wear a brace on their arm to shoot their compound bows. It’s been six months since the break, and Christian can’t play contact sports for another six months. To say the least, it’s been a challenging year for him. But his arm is straight, healing perfectly, and his sunny disposition remains intact. We are grateful all is well.

I finally finished my latest novel, River of Mercy, and am waiting to see if my literary agent can find a home for it with a traditional publisher. I’ve done well as an indie author but would love to focus more on just writing the stories and sharing them with readers while letting a publisher take over creating the actual books. Joey’s girlfriend Emilee helped me with this book signing this summer at The Farmer’s Wife Barn Show while Scott was off doing his flight training. It’s been a time of adjustments for all of us, but we’ve had a really good year.

By the grace of God, we still have our orchards. Most of you know we farm stone fruit, but we also have walnuts which haven’t done well in years. Thankfully people continue to want peaches and nectarines. Being a fruit and nut family fits us. We are from California, after all.

With the boys growing up, our manpower is dwindling on the farm. We were grateful to have James help this year, and Joey worked all harvest season since he chose to continue online schooling for his senior year. With Scott returning to flying, we aren’t sure what harvest season will look like this coming summer. But, the Lord says do not worry about tomorrow, so I repeat this to myself daily because today certainly has enough worry of its own.

To our surprise and delight, John made it home to celebrate Thanksgiving with us in Fort Bragg. Oma and Opa joined us, and the boys helped Oma walk to the beach. Oma doesn’t need much help, except this was half a mile hike through sand dunes to make it to the seashore.

Opa and Oma are doing great. Opa has accomplished teaching four out of his five grandsons how to hunt. Christian got his hunting license this past year, so he’s the last on Opa’s list. And Garry got his first wild turkey with Opa this past spring; the turkey beat them up before calling it a day. If you get Opa’s Christmas letter, you probably got a good laugh out of this turkey wrestling story. Of course, Opa won. Eighty isn’t old when you’re Opa.

I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays with your families too. We had fun doing our family photoshoot this year. Taking family pictures has sometimes been trying, especially when the kids were younger. This year the older kids were full of sass and vinegar. They made mimosas before the photographer arrived and told me to drink one or two or three. “Come on, Mom, it’s your birthday. Get loosey-goosey,” said Cami.

“I don’t want to be a loosey-goosey mom. I’d rather be Mother Goose,” I said.

The older kids had me laughing and blushing and apologizing to our sweet and talented photographer Kylie of Peachy Lemons Photography, for our family’s behavior in the orchard.

Please bear with me as I share some of our photoshoot pictures under our golden walnut leaves.

I realize this letter is mostly photos. I have a hundred more I could share, but I won’t put you through it. With seven kids, the kids’ spouses, and now our adorable grandkids, I could post all day long. But it’s about impossible to get us all together for professional pictures these days, so we just shot Bravo 9 this year. That is what Scott has labeled the nine of us. We have a family chat, Bravo 9, too, full of the kids’ antics. Scott has always said it is better to laugh than to cry, so our family laughs a lot.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year. God bless and keep you. May He shine his face upon you and give you peace.

Much love, Paula