2011 Christmas Card

Tebow-Ho-Ho! Merry Christmas. Welcome to the holiday that celebrates the birth of our Savior…of course we’re talking about Tim Tebow.

That’s right, it’s that time of year again! Time for you to put this letter at the bottom of the stack and cover it with the cards from the people you really wanted to hear from.

It’s been another wonderful year for the Schrenks starting with a Disney trip and ending with Tim Tebow taking us to the playoffs (please, please, please). We also had one kid start school, one adult switch jobs, one adult get a job, and another kid who did something but we can’t remember what that was because she’s the second child…

Speaking of children, let’s start there. Allison is now a 6 foot tall 5 year old who has her mom’s good looks and her dad’s basketball skills. If you’ve never seen Brandon play basketball, don’t be confused as this is not a compliment. She started Kindergarten and by far and away her favorite subject is library! Being one of the youngest in her class Brandon and Amy were worried that she wouldn’t be prepared but she’s fitting in quite well, making lots of new friends and is already better at math than the former Prime Minister of Greece and better at hide and seek than Osama Bin Laden.

Jordan is a little (term used loosely) firecracker (term is about perfect) who can only be described as a hilarious handful. We once heard a comedian describe his 3 year old as a little Korean dictator and we think he was describing our youngest. She is opinionated (“Daddy, that’s enough tickling”), a daredevil (she drug dad and Uncle Mike to any rollercoaster she was tall enough to ride at Sea World), and although she’s always on the knife’s edge of what’s proper behavior, she’s really funny and genuinely good hearted. Except when she pretends to root for the Raiders – that kind of nonsense gets you sent to bed without dinner.

As stated earlier we took a trip to the second happiest place on earth (the first, of course, is Tebowing anywhere on the planet) only this time we went with all four grandparents and an assortment of aunts and uncles. Brandon was concerned that there was no way that he was going to have as much fun as they had last time. Amy wasn’t because she’s not dumb. Everyone had a blast and Amy has already started preparations for our 2013 trip!

Speaking of making plans for a Disney vacation, Amy got a job as a travel agent who specializes in Disney! Yup, she’s one of the rare few who managed to turn her addiction into a career. She’s also still heavily involved in Jazzercise (well, heavily is the wrong term) and an active member of the PTA at Allison’s school. In her free time she…you guessed it, is fine tuning our next Disney World excursion.

Brandon, as usual, is existing between mass emails. He took a new job with the same company, still as an engineer who does something with air. So he basically went from being a “nerd in a plant” to being a “nerd in an office” but now he works near a major Houston mall. The girls love to visit him at lunch time and tell all of their friends that “Daddy works at the mall!” In his spare time he’s finishing up his 2-year master’s course in just over 3 years!

We hope you all had a great 2011 and we hope that the Mayans are wrong so we can write one more of these next year. Stay safe this holiday season, specifically by not playing football against Ndamukong Suh (though Brandon still contends that Suh stomped on the guy laying on the ground in self defense), and give your loved ones an extra kiss and hug for us.

Merry Christmas,

Brandon, Amy, Allison, Jordan, Hunter, Chloe, and Amy/Allison/Jordan’s cat

Don’t forget to check us out at http://theschrenks.blogspot.com