What a year it has been. I thought 2020 was hard, 2021 proved even harder. Many of you have suffered losses this year as well. I’m so sorry for all the sadness. And yet as I looked over our family photos, trying to put this letter together, I realized in the midst of all our sorrows, we’ve had an abundance of joy. Sorrow did not win the year. Joy won.

It’s nearly impossible to get a family photo of all our kids with work and life schedules, plus the kids don’t like posing for my pictures, but they humored me for John’s high school graduation in June. I can’t believe how big they all have gotten. Time goes by so fast!

We chose one of our favorite places, Pudding Creek in Fort Bragg on Thanksgiving to take our Christmas photo. The boys weren’t all that happy I pulled them off the beach so we could eat Thanksgiving dinner with Oma and Opa and Aunt Diane and Uncle Grant over at the Fishing Five camp.

John said are you really going to use this picture for our Christmas card? Joey in his battery-operated orange shirt looks like he’s going to beat someone up and Christain looks about to cry. I said, getting you all to pose for a picture is painful for all of us. At least the beach looks nice. We are missing our three oldest kids and their families in our photo here but Alpha team is doing great. The older kids spend Thanksgiving with their spouses’ families. We get them all on Easter each year.

When our first three kids were little, Scott dubbed them Alpha team. After Alpha was grown and gone, Scott labeled our four younger boys Bravo team. Now with John out of the house and Joey driving and busy with his teenage life, Garry and Christian have become Charlie team. Christian really wants to be a team leader like Garry (Charlie team leader), John (Bravo team leader), and Cami (Alpha team leader), so Scott said, “Okay, Christain, you are now Delta team leader.

“Who’s Delta team, Christian asked. “The grandkids,” Scott said. I have to say Christian was not thrilled with this assignment, but he’s trying to nail it. Here is Christian at Halloween watching over three of the grandbabies. They absolutely love Uncle Christian because he’s so fun to play with.

Here are the granddaughters wearing their matching Christmas jackets. We are thrilled Lacy and Jake are expecting a healthy baby boy in February on Lily’s third birthday. What a birthday surprise for big sister! Not sure baby J.J. will be born on his due date, but if he is, Lily may be a bit confused. When I asked her what she wanted to call the new baby she said, “Sister!” I’m sure this comes from her cousins, Kara and Abby. They call each other “sister” all the time. It’s so sweet.

California was under a kids’ sports ban in early 2021, but Garry James was able to play winter football. The good news is nobody in the program got sick and the boys had a great time. Kids need to play to stay healthy! John and Joey also got a football season after the quarantine. Joey hurt his leg during the first practice and pretty much missed the entire spring season, but John played spring football and Sutter won their league, even though no playoff games were held because all the sports were resuming at the same time.

Another major highlight of 2021 was getting a new puppy. We’d been having coyote problems and also mountain lions live in our area, so we invested in a livestock guardian dog. A Kangal shepherd born in January just one day after baby Benjamin went to heaven. When we picked up our puppy he was quite a sight. He’d been raised with sheep in a barn for three months and was covered in scabies and fleas. The boys wanted to name him Ragnar after the Viking king, but I said, he certainly doesn’t look like a Ragnar. We should name him Raggedy Andy. He’s such a raggedy dog. The boys protested so I just called him Rags and said I hope he grows into his mighty name.

After a trip to the vet, medicine, and lots of TLC, Rags slowly got healthy. It only took a few months for him to step into his calling of guarding the farm. We haven’t seen or heard a coyote howling since Rags took over protecting us. He’s almost eleven months old now and we love him so dearly.

We had another wonderful harvest season, keeping our West Butte farmstand open after the quarantine ended because people seem to enjoy coming out to the orchard to pick up their fruit. We also continued delivering to our grocery stores and are very thankful for all the community support that keeps our farm going.

After his graduation in June, John spent most of his summer on the East Coast doing some backpacking and getting to know our East Coast family and friends. For all of you who hosted John, thank you so so much! He had a great trip and returned home just in time to help finish the walnut harvest. Early rain this year made the walnut harvest a muddy mess, but John jumped in and became the “shaker” driving the machine that shakes the trees until all the nuts fall to the ground, working 18 hour days until harvest ended in November.

Another sweet joy in our lives this year was our swimming pool. When Covid hit, the public swimming pool in Sutter closed down, so we got this pool from the feedstore in 2020. Who knew it would become the gathering hole during warm summer evenings in our backyard. Don’t let this little pool fool you. It is freezing cold since we empty it out once a week, watering our lawn and trees. Joey says ice baths are good for sore muscles. But, no, thank you. I’ll take Motrin and let the boys have the cold pool.

I was able to do a couple of book signings and also spent the year writing a new novel. I’d hoped to finish River of Mercy by December, but this isn’t going to happen. Perhaps it will be done in early 2022, God willing. My family and our farm keep me so busy, but I write when I can.

Thanks to the covid quarantine, our family has returned to camping, but since Scott and I are getting older, and want to be comfortable, we go glamping instead. This year I learned I can write in a tent. Scott and the boys go do their thing and I get the tent all to myself. Of course, I’m not alone. The tent is filled with my imaginary friends, as Scott calls my fictional characters.

We are grateful all the boys got to have a nearly normal football season this fall. Scott helped coach the freshman football team at Sutter High School and also Christian’s 10 U team for Junior Huskies. Garry played on his 14 U team again in the fall, and Joey, a junior, is still varsity. Football season felt almost back to normal.

Joey’s varsity team won their section championship. We played Paradise, yes, the Paradise that was destroyed in the fire three years ago. Paradise has a great football program, a movie is being made about this Paradise team, but our boys dug deep and pulled out a spectacular win in overtime, something that didn’t seem possible at the beginning of this year when there was talk of no football in California due to covid. So this championship victory felt bigger than football. Look at the joy on these boys’ faces. They are getting ready to dunk Coach Reynolds in a victory bath after a hard-fought battle on the field. So proud of our Huskies!

The battle is real here on earth too. Not just football battles, but life battles, joy and sorrow battles. Soul battles. Thank God for Christmas, a baby in a manger, Jesus born for you and me because God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.

At the beginning of this year, Jake, Lacy, and Lily scattered baby Benjamin’s ashes while the rest of us released paper lanterns into the sky. Benjamin’s little heart valves saved two babies’ lives. I think about those grandmas holding their grandbabies that have pieces of Benjamin’s heart this Christmas and I can smile now. Jesus has walked us through a dark valley into brighter days, and we are so thankful for his faithful love.

I hope you feel the Lord’s great love this Christmas and remember the joy of the Lord is your strength!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Love and peace, Scott, Paula and our family