O'Gwin Family Christmas Letter 2018

2018 O’Gwin Family

Time Capsule

Ages: Chris (43), Stacy (40), Aly (17), Lise (14), Kate (11), Kylie (8)

Weight:  600 lbs. (give or take . . . with Chris alone being over 200 lbs!)

Favorite Family Memory . . . Camping on the Beach at Fort Pickens for Spring Break

Most Bittersweet Moment . . . Change of Command ceremony for 4^th Battalion, 7^th Special Forces Group. It was sad to see command time come to an end, but Chris (and Stacy) were grateful for the time, the people, and the opportunity to give our best and serve.

Hardest Moment . . . Sending Chris off to Afghanistan for a year (aka Groundhog’s Day 365) to be the J3 (Joint Operations Officer in charge of coordinating all SOF operations.) He will return late May/early June.

Favorite Couple’s Getaway . . . Pre-deployment Trip to Boston

Favorite Food . . . Leftovers, since that’s all we seem to eat since Chris left.

Favorite Thing We Did This Summer . . . Trek out to Utah to visit family and enjoy Lake Powell

Most Meaningful Trip . . . A trip to Paraguay with Humanitarian Especially For Youth.  Aly spent 2 1/2 weeks helping to build an addition on to a school.

Biggest Adjustments . . . Lise starting High school (Honors classes, Seminary, Dances) and Kate starting Middle School (multiple teachers, lockers, more freedom/responsibility)

Favorite Sport . . . Running.  Kylie was among the top 10 runners for her 2^nd grade Mile Club.  Aly still loves XC and track, although she suffered from heat exhaustion issues this year. 

Favorite Book . . . Percy Jackson series and anything else by Rick Riordan.  Kate is officially a book worm.

This Year I Learned To . . . Spin a Flag.  Lise made the Color Guard team and has given many hours to perfecting and performing. Hooray for Friday Night Lights!

Something New I Tried . . . A Job.  Aly worked at Waffle House for 6 weeks.  ‘Nuf said.

Biggest Surprise . . . Ward Boundary Change and Stacy getting called as the Young Women’s President.

Things We’re Grateful for . . . That our home was undamaged when we had to evacuate for Hurricane Michael (and for an amazing Sister-in-Law who took us in!), and that we were able to serve with “Mormon” Helping Hands, aiding our neighbors in Panama City who were less fortunate.

Things We’re Looking Forward To . . . Chris coming home for R&R and Kylie’s Baptism while he’s here.

Biggest Lesson Learned . . . Although there is much heartache and hardship in the world, there are also so many good, good people who give time, service, and kindness to make the world a better place.  So grateful for the many people who have reached out to our family while Chris has been gone, and for the few opportunities we’ve had to pay it forward.

Our Greatest Blessings This Year . . . The Gospel of Jesus Christ, Family, and all the Friends who have become family along the way. 

Wishing you & yours a peaceful, joyous holiday season. 

Much Love, The O’Gwin Family

  

 

Celebrate Me Home (Dec 2018)

So, before we get into all the amazing fun we had with Chris on his R&R, I just had to post this random awesome picture of Kate and her elephant sculpture . . . that she made out of Starbursts.  Who does that? 😁😂 

We were so happy to have Daddy home again!  Chris came into town during the girls last week of school and was able to come to Kylie's Christmas PJ party.  She was ecstatic.

For the first few days Chris was home, we kept things really low key, going on breakfast and lunch dates and catching up on movies Chris had missed, giving him time get over his jet lag.  Many naps were also taken in the process. ;)

We celebrated the German Christmas tradition of Advent with our good friends, the Lawsons, which included singing carols, reading stories, and eating Christmas cookies.  YUM!

When Christmas Eve rolled around we pretty much gorged ourselves for 2 days straight with a Turkey dinner on Christmas Eve and Steak and Shrimp on Christmas Day.  That made for lots of yummy leftovers . . . 

I love the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve and that it's always the gift the sisters got for each other.  

Love the Psych hat & lots of Perler beads (and Kate's ultimate Christmas outfit!)

Love the glow in the dark puzzle and the awesome Flash t-shirt

I love that the number one thing Kylie asked for from Santa was candy and cheddar cheese chips!

And then . . . HOORAY FOR CHRISTMAS MORNING!  For books and toys and nerf guns.  For legos and cameras and puzzles.  Just for the joy of being together.  

This had to be the best present by far.  Kate gave Chris a huge hairball.  So random.  So appropriate.

Yaya, I conquered the crazy puzzle.  It was a good one!

Love the LED light Lego ship in a bottle.  Thanks, Chris, for helping Kate get it to work.  

So after the opening of gifts (and some showers), we had an "every man for himself" nerf war, which was amazing and a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, Santa did not realize how powerful those Nerf guns really are, so there were quite a few casualties in the form of welts and bruises.  Sheesh!!

After all the Christmas fun, Chris and Stacy escaped to Orlando for a few days for a couple's getaway.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  We were able to go to the temple a couple of times and we also did a day at the Kennedy Space Center.  This was pretty cool because Chris' Dad, Carl, worked for NASA and even helped with the navigation system for the Hubble Space Telescope. Neat-o Skeet-o! 

We were able to see rockets, shuttles, lunar modules, space telescopes - anything and everything Space-y!!

And here we've got the Hubble Telescope right here!  Excellent.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

When we got back from our quick getaway it was time for the thing Kylie had been waiting for since she turned 8 years old in August, her baptism.

It was a great day for the whole family.  Chris did great on the baptism and confirmation, and Kylie's sisters did a great job on the talks and prayers.  Such a good time to be together.

Kylie also got some special gifts for her baptism.  Thanks to Grammy for her very own set of scriptures, and thanks to Grandpa for her birthstone necklace.

So proud of Kylie and her decision to get baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

For New Year's Eve, we got together with some good friends to enjoy yummy food and party!

After the dust had settled from all the parties, we had a couple more chill days with Dad and then it was time for him to go back to Afghanistan.  All good things must come to an end, right?  But oh, it was so good to have him here.  It just made our family feel complete.  And, oddly enough, it was really stabilizing to have a man in the mix to balance out all the females we've got roaming around our house.  It's just good to get the male perspective on things sometimes to keep it real, ya know?  😂😁 It was really hard to send him off again, but I was so grateful that we got almost a full 3 weeks with him - it was amazing!  I was also grateful that we had 7 months under our belt and only 5 left to go.  We got this!