Season's Greetings
from Sunny Florida

Perhaps the only state not currently auditioning for the Day After Tomorrow 2.

Given the economy and our continuing concerns about sustainability, we've decided to send our Christmas Greetings out by the web this year. This way, we can wish a warm holidays to more people than ever before, and hopefully keep in touch a little better.

Parker turned seven this year, and has become a voracious reader. He's read most of the Chronicles of Narnia, parts of the Hobbit, and is heavily involved in reading children's adventure novels such as The Tale of Desperaux and Whittington. He'a also a voracious movie watcher, and is thoroughly familiar with Star Wars and many Disney films, but has also branched out to others, his favorites this year being Tron, Condorman, and Wall-E. He's been involved with Studio Percussion, a local non-profit drumming/music studio, for most of the year, participating in two Junior Drummers concerts. His health is much improved over last year, and his asthma has not led to any other E.R. visits as of yet.

Kira is much more interested in dancing, music, and art/ drawing. She has also taken to writing, and boasts more handwriting acumen than her older brother. Her favorite films to watch this year were the Aristocats and Kiki's Delivery Service. She is also still very interested in learning to read (or at least be read to), and her ability to navigate mazes seems to a"maze" all who watch her. She has also maintained most of her curiosity of bugs and creatures, though some of Parker's fear has crept in to her own personality.

Jeff continues to work for the University of Florida as the webmaster for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In early spring he was named the University of Florida Communications Networtk volunteer of the year for his work in helping promote new university wide initiatives aimed at reducing publications costs. He also won Honorable mention in the Golden Gator awards for his work on the Department of English website. In the middle of the year he took on the extra challenge of writing some news releases and stories for the college, which has allowed him to use some skills he hasn't since high school (and he'd be the first to admit it probably shows).

Kristin is still able to be home with the kids, splitting her time between running the day-to-day needs of our home business, Union Design & Photo, homeschooling Parker (and Kira, by default), and volunteering in many ways in town. This is her third year on the board of the local MOMS Club, and she continues to help out in her other local parenting support group by running the website and forum for it. She has also been doing a bit of pro bono work for local organizations as well. Her days continue to be full, though she keeps finding more and more things to do!

The family has become quite active in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville, especially with the music, communications, and children/youth religious education (RE) programs. Kristin joined the Chalice Choir late in 2007, and Jeff, Kristin and Kira participated in Summer Choir, including starting a piece as the Family von Stevens Singers (Kira was amazing!). Jeff has continued on as a member of the Chalice Choir with Kristin since then, which is a big step for him as he has always wanted to sing but not had the confidence to do so. Just a few months ago they both sang a paired duet as part of a musical piece and Jeff is growing as a voice every week, though he's still sure he's missing some notes as he doesn't read music. Parker has since joined the children's choir (which he says is his favorite part of attending), although Kira has backed away from it (though that doesn't stop her from signing both children's and adult choir songs when no one is paying attention). Kristin was recently invited to join Audacity, a smaller a capella signing group within the Fellowship, and has already performed with them three times.

Kristin and Jeff also taught RE classes to pre-K and K-1 ages on occasions when they weren't singing, and are now involved in both the summer camp (which Parker has thoroughly enjoyed the last two years!) and the new Youth-Adult Ministry program. Jeff has taken on the roll of Acting Co-Chair of the Communications Committee, and Kristin has taken on the onerous task of redesigning the Fellowship's website and converting it to a content management system as the webmaster.

Our business, Union Design & Photo, continues to expand, with several new clients in the 2008 year. In February, Union Design won a Silver Addy for its communications campaign for Books Open the World, a nonprofit building libraries and providing educational resources for schools and communities in Uganda. Just last week, we received the Alachua County Business of the Year Award from the City of Gainesville / Alachua County Office on Homelessnesss for our work on Project GRACE (soon to go live).

Sadly, our cats Midnight and Amber passed away in late November and early December. We miss them greatly. The children adopted two new kittens about the same time, which they named Magic Earthmen and Princess Night (whom Kira claims is a ninja).

We hope that everyone has had a good year and that life is treating them well. We look to try and be more proactive in keeping in touch with people in the New Year. Jeff looks to revamp this website soon, as well as the Union Design & Photo website, which will hopefully go live sometime in early 2009. After some thought, Jeff and Kristin have decided to end the Piggybank blog - it's too hard to find time to update both sides, run a business, and raise two children. Jeff willl look to start a new blog soon - in his copious amounts of spare time.

Season's Greetings
from Sunny Florida

Keep in Touch!

Jeff

Kristin

I just can't get enough!