Christmas Newsletter 2021

 

2021 Judd Christmas/New Year’s Newsletter 

It’s that time of year when we count our blessings!

We are grateful to be alive, to be able to worship face to face again, and to watch our kids working toward good goals.  We are grateful for blessings that make life safer, like vaccines and health care heroes and for blessings that make life rich and beautiful, like you!  And we are grateful for Jesus Christ and the hope he brings into this season!

We have had some fun family moments together this year, like a trip to Moab where we thought we saw a string of UFO’s (they were just satellites).  In St. George, we loved the petrified and unpetrified sand dunes.  At Bear Lake we shared a pair of waverunners with Fillmore cousins, and everyone survived.  Next year we look forward to taking Emily to Jerusalem if everything goes as planned.  

Megan is still a night shift scanner at Ancestry.com, and she handles the late hours and digitizing equipment like a pro.  She selects musical numbers for stake and ward worship services, and often plays organ or piano.  Her hobbies include institute classes, trying new restaurants with friends, and making healthy recipes with ingredients like quinoa or olive oil.  Megan likes buying “healthier” snacks online, and is grateful to have opportunities to go to the temple again. 

Carrie finally graduated with her masters of social work from BYU! Her graduation ceremony was held online due to covid so she had a small backyard graduation celebration in April, where she was hooded by Frank and walked across the back porch. After some well-deserved vacations to Idaho and southern Utah, Carrie moved to Salt Lake City with a college friend. A few months later, she started working for Encircle Therapy as a certified social worker (CSW). She also adopted a cat named Demi (Demeter) and started dating someone new.

Lisa is grateful for an upcoming tax internship with Grant Thornton in SLC.  She finished her first semester of Junior Core accounting classes at BYU. For almost a year, she has done accounting for BYU Dining Services and loves it.  She has served as a stake auditor, and in her spare time, she scopes out her favorite thrift stores, plays her electronic piano, or hangs out with friends.  

Amanda is enjoying fun classes like baking and pastries, photography, and floraculture.  She also has some tough classes like AP English and concurrent enrollment math.  She is deciding between USU and BYU for school next fall.  She worked at Macey’s until recently; in her spare time she plays music and creates polymer clay figurines for a future Etsy shop.

 

Emily the proud owner of a hamster named Chunky, like the peanut butter.  She volunteers at Petco once a week cleaning cages for rescue cats. Emily enjoys art, axolotls, 9th grade choir, coding, creative writing, composing, cello, piano, youtube, seminary, and making realistic drawings of fictional characters.

  

Frank rode his e-bike so much during covid--almost 4000 miles--that it needed new gears.  He is happy to be teaching face to face again!   He is grateful we were able to have the bathrooms renovated this year: Bye-bye brown toilet and yellow sinks!  

Jill renewed her teaching license, added on an ESL endorsement, and landed her dream job as the 95% Reading Intervention teacher at Orem Elementary school.  She is having a great time teaching phonics to small groups of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders!  And next year she gets to help plan young women camp for Emily and her friends!

Judd Family Funnies 2021 Edition:

Emily: “Ow!”  Lisa, “Oh, no, was that your toe?’  Emily: “No, it was my dignity!”

Emily: “I’m going to spiritually, physically, and mentally digest you!”

Lisa:  “I’ve got to stop looking on the internet because I keep finding things I want!”     

             Frank: “Yeah, that’s where you found your boyfriend!”

Amanda:  “Take my money! Strike me down, and your journey to capitalism will be 

            complete.”  

Lisa: “I am always willing to give my opinion.  Day or night.  Solicited or unsolicited.”

Carrie: “You know what’s funny: Dad has a better hairline than most of the people I’ve dated.”

Lisa:  “What is that bruise from?”  Amanda: “ I was late for my baking and pastries

      class.”  Lisa:  “So they beat you?!” 

Emily:  “Sometimes I need an hour and a half to collect myself.”

Amanda: “Are you a ‘mouth half-full’ or a ‘mouth half-empty’ kind of person? 

May your holidays be full of hope and joy!

                   We love you!

Long Overdue post on Greece November 4-11, 2019

Greece is an amazing country full of beautiful vistas, cool archaeology, and sweet biblical connections!   

These ancient treasures are being painstakingly preserved and protected.  It was exciting to see famous cultural icons in person and realize that the works of art I studied in school are just the tip of the iceberg!

Meteora is a mountaintop monastic retreat in central Greece.  The scenery en route was gorgeous! 

 The bus drove us through green forests, steep canyons, tiny villages, and Greek orthodox shrine boxes along the sides of the road.  

We weren't sure if these marked the site of traffic fatalities or were just reminders to worship as people went about their daily travels.

  

Arriving at Meteora, the bus pulled off to an overlook so we could take pictures before the rain came.  We had a lot of rainy days, but we were so grateful to be there, it didn't dampen our enthusiasm at all!

The monastery itself was at the top of a steep set of stairs.  I lost count of how many steps, but we were all feeling the burn by the top.  A beautiful mini chapel was open for us to experience.  We imagined the dedication it took for monks to live here, not to mention navigating those steps to fetch their supplies and provisions.  In Jerusalem, we had to carry groceries from the parking garage down 2 floors, and there were elevators to help us.  Until the 1920's the monks and visiting pilgrims used ropes and baskets to get to the top!  

(Image from wikipedia)

This is a glimpse of the Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki.  It is covered in marble carvings showing the power of Galerius, a 4th century Roman Emperor.  

Galerius also built this huge rotunda.  It has been a church, a mosque, and a church again.  Some say it is one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, and it is definitely the oldest church in Thessalonica.

This is the acropolis of Thessaloniki--great view, lots of evidence of building and rebuilding, secondary and tertiary usage.  We were impressed that the bus driver could make it up the windy, narrow roads so we could enjoy this site!

This is a cave in Philippi noted as the type of place Paul could have been imprisoned in.  He wrote many of his epistles from prison, but in Philippi an earthquake miraculously freed Paul and the other prisoners.  This miracle resulted in the conversion of the jailer and his household.

This is the aqueduct in Neapolis/Kavala, port city to Philippi.  It was built in the location of an earlier Roman aqueduct, but the construction was actually done under Suleiman the Magnificent, who also built the walls of Jerusalem in the 16th century.

Food and wonderful people were a real highlight of the trip!

We took an optional early morning hike with students to the acropolis of Nafplio.  Again, lots of stairs!  But the view from the top was worth it!

We had a wonderful visit to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.  We saw room after room of treasures, sculptures, artifacts, idealized marble sculptures of powerful leaders frozen in time, pots and housewares used by everyday people, left behind as clues to an earlier civilization.  

This headstone was very poignant.  The seated figure represents a deceased mother, and the living person on the right is holding the child, as if promising that he will help the child remember and honor the memory if its mother.