Merry
Christmas!
The biggest
event of 2014 for our little family was the birth of Joel Riley
Holley on April 15th. He was born at home, a healthy 7lbs
12oz. He has grown so much since then! Now 8 months old, Joel's
favorite activity is crawling around and getting into everything! He
also enjoys pulling himself up to standing. He's still getting used
to solid food, but loves peas and especially bananas. Joel is
generally a very happy baby. He gets along very well with our sweet
dog Shadow. Sometimes Joel pulls Shadow's fur, but Shadow usually
repays him by licking his face (which we try to discourage!)
James graduated from BYU this month, magna cum laude with a Bachelor's
degree in Political Science, and a minor in Computer Science. He has
done very well in school, but is definitely ready for a little break!
He took the LSAT and got an excellent score, so has applied to
several of the top 10 law schools. We should be hearing back in the
next couple of months. It is very likely that we will be moving next
summer for James's schooling, which will be quite an adventure!
Both of us
continue to be busy at our taekwondo studio. Valerie cut back after
the baby was born, but we each still teach about 5 hours a week, in
addition to the classes that we attend ourselves. We love our work at
the dojang, and enjoy seeing our students progress and grow. We also
enjoy competing together, especially on our studio's demonstration
team. We competed at several local tournaments this year (including
one when Valerie was 8 months pregnant!). Valerie also had the
opportunity to referee at several events, including the National
Championships in San Jose during July. James and Joel got to spend
some quality time together that week, and they did great—better
than Mommy did away from her boys!
We are loving
our beautiful house, and have made a couple of big improvements this
year. In the spring, we renovated our back deck. It was in pretty
rough shape when we bought the house, but now is quite lovely. Then
this fall we hired Valerie's brother Kyle to tile our kitchen. He did
an amazing job, and we absolutely love having the tile floor.
Our big
adventure at the moment is preparing for Black Belt Testing, which
will take place at the end of January. Valerie will be testing for
her 4th Degree and James for his 3rd Degree.
There's a lot of work that goes into it beforehand, and the test
itself is going to be pretty intense! We're really looking forward to
it.
Thank you for
reading, and thank you especially for being a part of our lives. We
love you very much! We hope that you and yours have a wonderful
Christmas and a happy New Year!
Love,
The Holley
Family
Christmas 2014
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