End of the Year 2022

Merry Christmas from the Kings 2022!

Corey's store continues to increase in business, and he keeps very busy with that.

Jenna has started to sub on occasion and keeps busy with managing the household.  She is also learning to play cello in the parent orchestra in the school district and enjoys her volunteer time at the Equine Therapy Center.

Westley is currently serving a full-time mission for our church in Wisconsin.  He has been there about seven months and loves it. 

Caleb keeps busy with work at In-N-Out and dual enrollment classes through BYU-Idaho as well as finishing his senior year.  He is preparing for a mission.

Travis stays busy with work at In-N-Out, choir, football, and wrestling. He made the all-region choir this year, which was quite an accomplishment. He also enjoys his culinary program at school.

Eliza works hard at school to maintain good grades and divides her time between choir, orchestra and theatre.  She is participating in the school musical, "The Addams Family", which will show in January.

Jonah is learning to balance his time between school, band (he plays the trumpet), piano, and his gymnastics team.  He begins his first competition season this month.

Annmarie finished her competition season for gymnastics in October.  She has started taking voice lessons in addition to piano and successfully auditioned and joined the Wylie Children's Chorus, an honor choir fo fourth graders. 

Nathan started baseball this year in the spring and played again in the fall.  He says he was "born for baseball".  He is also learning the piano.

We hope you can all feel the love of the Savior this Christmas season and allow His peace in your lives, and we will strive for the same.  Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2022

Christmas this year was different without Westley there. He celebrated the King way, with chicken nuggets and applesauce.  We did the usual Christmas morning tradition of coming down the stairs, doing stockings first, opening presents, then doing breakfast.  We had one hour of church and spent the rest of the day just being lazy.  The kids also played a game that Zach and Leslie had sent us.

Of course, my favorite tradition is the gifts the kids make each other.  Travis made Eliza some cookies.  Annmarie made Caleb a sack for his D&D dice and he made her a banner to hang in her room. Eliza made Jonah a wand; Nathan made Travis a cookbook, and Jonah made Nathan a name banner. 

 

Community Christmas Party, Mom's Birthday

December really is a full month, with three birthdays and tons of concerts and meets and tournaments. Our neighborhood HOA put on a community Christmas party, which some of us went to. They had live reindeer there, so we couldn't resist getting a picture. It was cold and they also had hot chocolate. 

We also celebrated my birthday.  I like to have angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert on my birthday.  We usually have chicken cordon bleu for my dinner too.  

 

Wrestling Tournament

Every year Wylie hosts a wrestling tournament and Corey and Jonah volunteered at the tournament.  Travis had some good  matches and Corey took some pictures.

 

Basketball Game

Nathan and I were bumming around on a Friday night when we realized that Wylie was playing Wylie East in basketball. I can get into the games for free with my substitute badge (and a guest) so we went to the game. We had fun cheering our team on and we won!

 

More Concerts

December is a month of concerts, and we also had the Draper 6th grade band concert.The band meets in sections for their class periods throughout the day, so this was the first time putting them all together for a concert, and they did really well. 

The Wylie Children's Chorus, which Annmarie is a member of, also had a concert.  The whole family went to this concert for our family night, since it was on a Monday.

Our parent orchestra put on our first concert.  The music is really basic and most of the parents don't even read music and have never played an instrument before.  Though playing the cello is challenging, the basics that we learned this first term were all things I mostly knew.  It was fun to finally play all together in a performance.  I have missed playing an instrument with a group.

 

In-N-Out Christmas Party

Corey and I went to the In-N-Out Christmas party down town for store managers and support staff. The theme was also Paris and they had crepes there as well for dessert. Yummy! I can't find the picture of us from that night, though. 

Since Corey's birthday was that same night, we celebrated with him another night. 

 

Military City Meet in San Antonio

Jonah had his first gymnastics meet.  It was at a gym in San Antonio.  Surprisingly, the meet went really quickly.  He did really well too: 1st place on rings with a 10.2, 1st place on vault with a 9.4, 2nd place on P bars with a 9.3, 4th place on high bar with a 9.6, 2nd place on floor with a 10.5, and 4th place on pommel with a 10.3.  He got 2nd place All Around with a 59.3 also!  What a great start to competing!  We knew he would be really good at this.

 

Holiday Choir Concerts

Tuesday December 6th was the combined holiday choir concert for all the Wylie High School choirs at the Cross Church. Eliza is in JV mixed and Travis is in A'Cappella. A'Cappella sang a few excerpts from Handel's "Messiah" and it was so great.

Then, the next night, the A'Cappella Choir, varsity band and varsity orchestra groups combined for a concert where they did excerpts from the Messiah again.  It was so incredible!  I wish they would do that again.  I love listening to the Messiah on CD from the Tabernacle Choir that I have, but listening to it in person is just amazing. 

 

Jimmy Johns Student of the Week

Every week, one student at each school is selected as "Jimmy Johns student of the week". Since there are a lot of students in Wylie ISD, it's not very easy to be the one selected. Caleb was the student selected for the second week of December at Wylie High School. He was chosen by his physics teacher, Mr. Campoverde. It's always nice to have your child recognized for the good that they are doing.

 

Kids Christmas Party

We took Jonah, Annmarie and Nathan to the kids Christmas party for In-N-Out. The theme was Paris. The best part was the crepes they served; they were so delicious.  They had snow tubing again, plenty of food and crafts, and lots of people to say hello to.