New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve, we went over to the Whettens' house for their annual New Year's party.  Jonah and his friends left from their for a New Year's dance in Frisco, which Corey and I drove them to.  Westley and Alejandra had gone to a friends' house to celebrate New Year's with them.  Eliza had gone to her friend's house as well.  The rest of us were at Whettens until it was time to take the kids to the dance.  Corey and I drove them.

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve, we went to the annual party that the Whettens usually throw.  The party ends by 8:30 pm and they do a balloon drop around 8 pm.  This is so any youth can get to the dance that is always happening somewhere.  Jonah is turning fourteen in 2025, so he was able to go to the dance this year.  He went with friends from the ward: Blake Bittel, Cameron Whetten, and Savannah Bittel.

 

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!

End of Year 2021

 

End of Year 2020

We have almost survived 2020! I’ll try to keep it brief since there isn’t much to report this year.  We were fortunate that our kids got to go back to in person school in August.  Corey and Westley (and now Caleb) have continued to report to work as well.

Westley is seventeen and a senior in high school. He spent the summer in Utah working at In-N-Out.  We will have to wait and see what he chooses to do with his future.

Caleb is sixteen and a sophomore.  He also works at In-N-Out now.  He has continued with band this year and is enjoying robotics.

Travis is fourteen and in 8^th grade.  He still loves football and singing bass in the choir at school.

Eliza is thirteen and in 7^th grade.  She started violin lessons this fall and continues with the piano and with choir. 

Jonah is nine years old and continues with gymnastics and piano.

Annmarie is seven and was moved to preteam in gymnastics with the hope for being moved up to team at some point. She loves to play the piano also.

Nathan is four and doing his final year of preschool with Mom.

Corey is still at the Plano In-N-Out as store manager.   He continues to serve at church as the Deacon’s quorum assistant adviser.

Jenna has cut back on piano lessons and preschool students and looks forward to Nathan starting school next year to do something else.  She is still the music director at church, which is frustrating without being able to use vocal music. 

We wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that you can find peace in the season and hope for the future.

End of the Year 2019

Merry Christmas from the Kings 2019

We have survived another year in Wylie, Texas!

Westley is sixteen and driving.  He is in 11^th grade.  He continues to play the trumpet and has now joined jazz band in addition to the concert band he is in (called Wind Ensemble).  He is also working at In-N-Out now.

Caleb is now fifteen and a freshman in high school.  He is continuing with trombone and so far seems to like high school.

Travis is now thirteen and in 7^th grade.  He played football this fall for the junior high team and loved it.  He has continued with choir at school and I continue to force him to learn piano.

Eliza is now twelve and in 6^th grade.  She continues to take piano lessons from me as well as sing in the school choir.  She loves to write stories in her free time.

Jonah is eight and was baptized in March.  He is in third grade.  He loves gymnastics and has also joined the elementary school’s running club.  He also still takes piano lessons as well.

Annmarie is six years old and still does gymnastics and piano lessons from me.  She continues to delight us with her antics and keeps us on our toes.

Nathan is three, soon to be four (and have an actual real birthday on Leap Day!).  He loves preschool and has recently started writing his own name.

Corey is still at the Plano In-N-Out as store manager.   He is now serving as the Deacon’s Quorum assistant advisor (or specialist, as it is now called).

Jenna is the usual busy with preschool and piano lessons and managing the household.  It has been nice having an extra driver and next year we’ll have even another one.  Guess it will be time for another car as well! 

Our card this year shows Corey and Jenna at the In-N-Out kickoff dinner in February and a visit to the Fort Worth Zoo in October.

We hope that you find joy this Christmas season in celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Love,  the King Family

End of the Year 2018

Merry Christmas from the Kings 2018

Another year has flown by, this one faster than the last!  We are still here in Wylie, TX and the kids are growing so fast. 

This school year we have chosen to host another foreign exchange student.  Our student, Benjamin, is from Denmark and is sixteen years old.  He only has two older half-sisters who are grown and out of the house, so coming to our large family has been a big change for him.  He has fit in well with us and the kids love him.  He keeps busy participating in the school theater program, first securing a lead role in the play “Peter and the Starcatcher” and now as a cast member in the musical “Newsies”. 

Westley is now fifteen and in 10^th grade.  He has continued playing the trumpet in the marching band and absolutely loves band and music.  He even submitted a score of music for the Reflections Arts contest here at the school and just received word that his musical composition is moving on to the district competition.  He is learning to drive and Corey and I are learning what will truly turn our hair gray.

Caleb is now fourteen and in 8^th grade.  He also participates in band at school, playing the trombone.  He has recently joined the chess team at school.  He is still trying to get as far with boy scouts as he can until the Church drops the program at the end of 2019.

Travis started football and choir this year.  He loved playing football, and he has found that he really enjoys singing in a choir.  He continues to do well in school and is a social butterfly with friends always inviting him to do things.  Travis turned twelve in September and is in the 6^th grade.

Eliza is eleven years old and in the 5^th grade.  She did cheerleading and I coached her squad.  Our squad cheered for Travis’ football team.  This team and squad were through a recreational city league.  She is also trying out the violin through a program at school for 5^th graders to try the instrument before committing to the program. Here, with orchestra and band, they have to join in 6^th grade and follow it through or they can’t play in high school.  Unfortunately, the orchestra is a new program and is only offered at one school.  She would have to change schools in order to join the 6^th grade orchestra next year.  So we are having her try it out this year to see if she wants to play violin badly enough to change schools.  So far she seems to like it, but she likes her choral music class more (it is once a week where they get to learn about singing).  She is looking at joining choir in 6^th grade instead of orchestra. 

Jonah is now seven years old and in 2^nd grade.  He is doing well in school and has also started taking gymnastics classes.  After we noticed last year how he was always climbing on everything and pulling himself up to places with amazing strength, we thought maybe gymnastics would be something he could accelerate in.  He is doing well and awing his coaches with his strength and he loves it.

Annmarie is five years old and in kindergarten.  She is rocking that kindergarten class!  Her teacher just loves her outgoing and bright personality.  She also started gymnastics in June and the coaches have already fast tracked her to the advanced program.  She’s a natural.  She also tried cheerleading at a clinic that the high school cheerleaders do every year and she loved that.  She has gone around yelling cheers ever since the clinic.  Reading has become a favorite past-time for her as well. 

Nathan is almost three years old (end of February).  I can’t believe our baby is that old!  He is obsessed with robots.  Like most other children his age, he gets excited about everything and becomes super passionate about it too.  Toddlers can be so fun!  He is definitely a bright spot in our family.

Corey is still at the Plano In-N-Out as store manager.  He works hard and long hours.  He is also still serving as the Elder’s Quorum president in our ward and keeps busy with that as well. 

Jenna keeps very busy with managing all the endless piles of laundry and juggling how to get kids where they need to be.  Sometimes she forgets to pick up a kid here or there but no permanent damage done, right?  She was recently released from her calling as Primary Secretary and will be serving as the Relief Society Meeting Coordinator.  She will learn more about what that is soon (she hopes).  She now has six students in her preschool (after losing one this month) and hopes to continue building it in the future.  She also teaches fourteen piano students, as well as three of our kids (Travis, Eliza, and Jonah) and will start lessons with Annmarie in the spring.

We hope that you find joy this Christmas season in celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

End of Year 2017

As you can see, we have done some exploring this year while Corey has enjoyed working.  Okay, we did go see the Alamo and Mt. Rushmore without him, but he was with us for White Sands.  And he does work a lot.

We keep busy, Westley with marching band, school and seminary, Caleb with school, band and scouts, Travis with school and scouts, Eliza with her pageant, school, activity days, and the many choirs she is part of (she quit gymnastics just recently), Jonah with school, Annmarie with making everything a challenge, and Nathan getting into everything, especially markers and crayons.  Corey works a lot, both at work at In-N-Out and with his church calling as the Elder's Quorum President, and Jenna keeps busy managing it all, plus teaching preschool and piano lessons.

We hope you all find joy in this Christmas season as we remember the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the World. Merry Christmas!

End of the Year 2016

This year I did not do a letter for the Christmas cards, but I will write a post here for the end of the year.

Corey continues to work hard as the store manager of the Plano store.  He is looking at possibly transferring to a busier store in the future, but for now, he continues to do his best there at making it a profitable store.

Jenna has started teaching piano after school as well as trying to build a home preschool during the day.  And having a new baby has also kept her really busy this year.  Earlier in the year she started putting together everything she would need to get a teacher's certificate for Texas and has that ball rolling.

Westley continues to play trumpet in the band and work hard at scouts.  He enjoys dog sitting and babysitting and trying to do any odd job he can to earn money.  He also likes spending time with friends and with family.

Caleb started playing trombone this year at school.  He continues to excel in academics and was put in advanced math and Language Arts classes.  His favorite extra-curricular activity is playing video games but he has also developed a real love for reading and has read through several big series of books, including Fablehaven and Eragon.

Travis still excels in academics at school.  We haven't been able to put him in any sports, but he loves to play all the sports--basketball, football, and baseball.  Hopefully we'll be able to soon so he can expound on those skills.  He also has a lot of friends and enjoys spending time with his siblings as well.

Eliza continues to take gymnastics with her cousin Maggie.  She is in the Gifted and Talented program at school.  She has also found she loves to sing and wants to learn the violin.  She is very creative and loving.

Jonah has really blossomed in kindergarten.  His teacher is always sending good notes home about his work and his behavior and he has made a lot of friends.  He recently learned to ride his bike without training wheels and bought himself a scooter with money he had saved up.

Annmarie is doing preschool with me at home and excelling.  She loves to sing also and she keeps me hopping with her bright and cheeky personality.

Nathan is just a cute chunky boy of happiness.  He is now ten months old and huge for his age--24 pounds at ten months!  He is crawling, pulling himself up, walking along the edges of furniture, and climbing the stairs.  He still doesn't sleep all night regularly, but he is still in our room.  He is still lovable and cuddly anyway.

We didn't have a chance to go on a trip this year, but we have had fun here around home nonetheless.