Dear Family and Friends,

For any of you who read our Christmas letter last year, 2012 was such a sob fest, right? We’re happy to report that 2013 was all around a year of blessings for us.

In the beginning of 2013, we started looking for a permanent home. We thought we wanted to stay in the Bay Area, but move farther north so that I (Tyler) could work in San Francisco. We were literally two hours away from putting a bid down on a house in Walnut Creek. At the last minute, we pulled out and decided to stay in San Jose for the time. (Looking back at things, we probably would have had our bid selected and would be home owners.) Instead, we bought a new car. We bought a red 2014 Mazda CX-5. If you do by chance want to learn about how awesome our car is, it was featured this summer on the hit BBC show Top Gear. A clip can be found here (I post this because it is actually hilarious).

This summer we traveled a ton. We went to Sacramento to see my brother Kendall off on his mission, and Alie went to Utah for a wedding/family reunion. In late July, I went to Europe for work. I got to go to London and Amsterdam. I was working most of the time, but I also got to spend a couple of days in downtown London to see the sights. Alie’s optimistic that I will want to go back soon!

At the end of our summer, Alie and I got to go to Hawaii for a week to celebrate our 5-year anniversary. We’re really grateful for Alie’s family who helped in watching Jack. We had a nice break, good food and very warm weather for a week.

This summer we also celebrated what would have been Amelia’s first birthday. Since she wasn’t with us, we took our miniature “bunny Amelia” with us to the Monterey Bay aquarium and enjoyed our day. We felt great that this year we were able to speak about our experience with her to friends, family and even doctors at a convention. A few months ago we even found out that one of Amelia’s donated heart valves had been shipped out to be transplanted.

As the fall settled in, we realized that I was travelling more and more for work. While we lived in the Bay Area, the rest of my team was in San Diego. It had me travelling every week for 3 days. It was funny to note that I was spending time each week with Alie’s family, and Alie was stuck in San Jose. We thought to ask to move back down, and my work agreed to have us move back down. In trying to make things a little more permanent, we started a house search. I went one afternoon while travelling to San Diego, and we were having a hard time finding a house that we really liked. Then Alie sent me a text message telling us to look at a brand new listing. That brand new listing turned out to be the perfect place for us. We just moved in the first week of December, just in time to put up our Christmas tree.

And to top off our year, we’re happy to be expecting our third child next June! We’re really excited and hopeful for a happy, healthy baby.

If you want to know how each of us are doing, let me tell you about Jack. Jack is growing so fast! Earlier this year we put him in speech therapy because he was significantly behind his peers in expressing himself. Now he’s speaking more and more every day. If you are stuck in a room with him, you’d probably have to listen to the ABC song, over and over and over until someone let you out. Jack loves toys with wheels and other mechanical things. He loves to cook, and his favorite color is now green.

Alie is mostly occupied with keeping Jack occupied, but she’s always looking for something new to cook or make. She’s still eating vegetarian, but we still all eat very well at home when she cooks. When she has spare time, she’s making stuff, whether it’s art, crafts or helping other people.

Tyler has been very busy with work this year, but tries hard to find extra time for everything else. When he’s not at work, he’s probably playing with Jack, playing soccer or fixing things around the house.

We feel so blessed to know (almost) each and every one of you. Many of you have helped us in countless ways this past year, and we’d like to express our sincere gratitude. We love you and hope your family has a wonderful holiday season!