Dear Family & Friends,

Go Go Gadget Christmas Letter! What, you mean that didn’t work? OK, well I suppose I’ll sit down and write one. Here we go. 2010, in 500 words or less…

Life as a family with two young children can be a blur. In fact I remember my own mother telling me that she doesn’t have many memories between the time that my brother Sean was born and when we all were finally in school. Our days are quite FULL. Sometimes you can’t remember if you’re playing “Hiding Kitty” or “Wrestling Doggy” or whatever other game has just been invented on the spot. My hat goes off to my amazing wife who continues to stay home with a couple of endlessly energetic, imaginative and demanding boys.

Speaking of my wife, sometime around December of last year she decided she was a runner. One thing I’ve learned about my wife in the last eight years is once she decides something then you’d better WATCH OUT! She went from casually jogging around Greenlake to an organized 5k on Valentines Day to a half marathon in Tacoma in May. And as if running wasn’t quite interesting enough she figured biking and open water swimming might be fun too, so she participated in the Danskin Triathlon in August. Finally in October, in The City of Roses (aka Portland), Sarah ran her first marathon. Twenty six point two miles ladies and gentlemen! And let me also point out that it was pouring down rain for at least twenty five of those miles.

I’m still working my day job as DER SERVER MEISTER of The Omni Group. Seriously, it’s a pretty great gig. I get to help some really smart people create awesome products that I honestly believe are exceptional. Also, the fact that it takes less time to bike to work than it does to drive thru traffic doesn’t hurt. When I’m not wrangling servers I can be found cycling, playing pinball, or riling my boys into a cacophonous frenzy exactly five minutes before bedtime.

Joel and Isaac are amazing. Joel talks and plays and talks and runs and talks some more. The kid has no sense of shame or personal space and is quite determined that it’s his duty to inform every single person at Trader Joe’s that he is “Buzz Lightyear and look at my cool LASER!” Isaac is expressive and emotional in every non-verbal way possible. His frantic laugh is pure delight, but his disappointed scowl will break your heart. He has a tender spirit and loves his doll like it’s his own little baby.

We continue to enjoy living in Ballard (or Crown Hill, depending on who you ask) which is the perfect mix of neighborhood-y familiarity and grown-up city attitude. The only thing that could make it better would be having our family closer. Hope you all are surrounded by those you love this Christmas!

Peace on Earth,

The Bendicksons

Posted from Benaar’s posterous

Not this year.

This year was interesting for me because I did just that. I set myself just one specific goal and set about the task of getting there. It was to ride the High Pass Challenge, a very strenuous ambitious bike ride this past September. The act of setting and attaining that simple goal this year reminded me of the fact that I do have a say in how to to go about this whole life thing, so next year I’m setting some more.

Specifics:
- Learn to play steel guitar. That’s right, good old school country gospel twangy pedal steel.
- Author at least one iPhone or Mac application. I work at a flipping software development company for crying out loud, time to move past scripting and unix hackery onto something more elegant.
- Lose these last 10 pounds. I already dropped 30 this summer while training for the bike ride, but I’ve picked up 5 or 6 again in the last couple months.
- Find a church home. This is an aspect of our family’s spiritual and social life that is sorely absent.
- Take my wife on an extended getaway, somewhere new and fun. At least 4 days.

Things to do more of:
- Writing, both music and otherwise (blogging, letters, etc).
- Projects at home, like paining, home improvement stuff. I’m way more capable of that stuff than I give myself credit for and it always feels good to have it done.
- Traveling, both with and without the kids.

Things to do less of:
- Drinking & eating junk food. Not talking about an absolute ban here, but definitely need to get this back into balance.
- Watching TV, waste of time.
- Twitter / Facebook / RSS reading, basically all forms of digital ADD. It’s a time-suck and also impedes my ability to focus.
- Making excuses for not starting things.

All things considered 2009 was a really great year. I’m looking forward to the 2010’s (or whatever the heck this next decade is supposed to be called). I hope it is a blessed one for y’all!

PS> Just for fun I poked around in my old photo box (before the advent of digital cameras & iPhoto) and found this picture of me and my brother Jason at a “Dress Like The Future” party from New Year’s Eve, 1999.

Posted from benaar’s posterous

Posted from benaar’s posterous

Also, going thru these pictures I came across this video of Joel reading. It doesn’t seem like he changes that much from day to day anymore, but looking back it’s pretty remarkable (insert some “they grow up so fast” platitude here). I think he was fighting a cold or was all stuffed up from being outside or something. The result is even that much more adorable.

Posted from benaar’s posterous

We did have a few people comment about his little “sister” dressed up as Piglet.

Posted from benaar’s posterous

I love the crisp air and the fact that there’s still an acceptable amount of daylight. You get those brisk sunny days where the shadows are all slanty because the sun is scooting along the horizon instead of straight overhead and there are great picture opportunities. This is precisely why God invented the pumpkin patch! Let’s face it, it’s not really about pumpkins (since those can be had much less expensively at the Fred Meyer on the corner) but it’s about the urban novelty of tramping through a muddy field and snapping vibrant colorful pictures of your kids.

It’s as close to hunting and gathering as we city-folk get.

More pictures here.

Posted from benaar’s posterous

Here’s the thing about January. It’s more or less a holiday month in my opinion. In fact, in the Bendickson household, the holiday season starts the week of Christmas and doesn’t let up until after Sarah’s birthday on January 24th. In those four weeks we have Christmas, Second Christmas (usually with whichever set of parents we didn’t see on Christmas), my birthday, New Year’s, Macworld Expo (yes it’s an official holiday), MLK day, and Sarah’s birthday. That typically leaves us with just enough time to come out of our starch/sugar coma and catch our breath before Valentine’s Day.

In other non holiday related news, we’re in the final few weeks of single-kid-dom here. Joel’s baby brother is gestating right on schedule and should be joining the rest of us out here in “red-pill” land ’round about the end of March. Joel seems excited about the prospect of being a big brother. As you can see here he’s already scheming away with his unborn sibling, plotting against us.

“Dude, there’s only two of them! We can take ‘em!”

Joel, Mommy & Baby

If haven’t received one yet, you will soon. In the meantime here’s the “online” version. Happy New Year everyone!

Greetings and Merry Christmas!

2008 was quite a year for Joel, Sarah and me. We hit the ground running (so to speak) in January when we sold our house in University Place and moved up to Seattle. I’d been commuting to my job since May of 2007 and we were anxious to move north and shave a couple hours per day off of my drive. Luckily, we found a cute “brickie” complete with playroom and great backyard in the Crown Hill neighborhood of Ballard. My commute is now 3.3 miles, straight down 15th Ave. I still listen to the traffic reports my way into work, just to gloat to myself a little.

We spent the summer getting to know our new neighborhood and enjoying the local restaurants, parks, and beaches. We dove into a couple minor home improvement projects on our new home, specifically tiling the bathroom and repainting Joel’s playroom. We also hired our neighbor who was just finishing up a multi-year building project on his beautiful craftsman home to transform the decrepit old pile of shingles and sticks at the end of our driveway into an actual garage. It’s not quite big enough to be a two car garage, but it is a perfect “one car, one sound system” garage.

In July we found out that we’re pregnant again (well, specifically Sarah is pregnant… I just helped a little). It’s another boy and we’re expecting him to come along at the end of March. We’re still brainstorming names, but we have already started talking with Joel about his little brother. For the most part Joel seems to get it and is excited. We’ll see how it goes once the little one comes along and Joel is no longer the center of the proverbial universe.

Sarah’s sister Charissa is currently living with us. In addition to attending Mars Hill Graduate school in Seattle and working part time, she provides us with some (much needed) occasional babysitting. Most times its like having another parent around to help with Joel, but every now and then it’s like having an extra kid around too! (just kidding Charissa, we love you!)

I’m enjoying my job at The Omni Group as their Systems Administrator. It’s a fantastic place to work. Even though we’ve doubled in size over the last year it still feels very much like a small family business. And, now that my family lives so close, Sarah and Joel have been able to stop by for meals and the occasional coffee break. I appreciate the fact that Joel knows where I go during the day and is familiar with not only the office itself, but my co-workers as well. In fact he knows most of them by name!

Sarah is enjoying staying home full time with Joel (soon to be “the boys”). She attended a Birth Doula training course at Seattle Midwifery School this winter and will be pursuing certification sometime after baby number two. She’s enjoying MOPS in Ballard and is still part of a Tacoma based mom’s group that was started after Joel was born.

Joel continues to amaze us. Some fun tidbits: He does a spot-on (and hilarious) impression of Eeyore. He’s quite the baker; see his recipe for Pumpkin Muffins on our blog. He loves reading books, especially Thomas the Tank Engine & Bob the Builder. He loves helping daddy in the yard with raking, painting, and operating his backhoe. And he’s STILL pretty much inseparable from his Pooh Bear.

That’s it from us for this year. Hope this letter finds you well and (once again) Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Blessings!

Aaron Sarah & Joel

Also, glad we were able to get Pooh in the picture this year.

2008

2007

2006