Merry Christmas, family and friends!
We are thankful to report that the prospect of our family making it through 2024 in one piece (that is, seven pieces) is looking plausible. A few common themes throughout our year were weddings, travel (primarily due to said weddings), and aging. Analytical me decided to put together some statistics.
We were invited to 12 weddings and attended 9 of them. We visited 13 states, and flew over an additional 11. We dipped our toes in 2 oceans on either side of the country and attended 8 church congregations in 6 different states. In the health and aging department, we had 2 emergency care visits, 7 radiology visits, a mother earned her first 2 gray hairs and celebrated a milestone birthday, and we added 15 passenger seats to our vehicle ownership.
The year started much the same as the last two years, preparing for a brother's wedding. My brother Justin married Darci Wettstein in Eureka, IL in March and we have loved our new addition to the Massner family!
Emergency care visit number one was probably the most monumental event of our year...and hopefully the most monumental event of our young parenthood. The day before we were planning to leave on vacation at the end of April, our two-year-old Clara fell into the pond in our backyard with only three-year-old Keenan around. Thanks to guardian angels and God's great mercy, Matt was alerted and able to pull her limp body out of the water within about a minute, soon enough to save her life. Clara spent twenty-four hours under monitoring at the hospitals in Burlington and University of Iowa. As she has been talking about ever since, she even got to ride in a helicopter! Praise the Lord, our little girl took a turn for the better and walked away with a clean bill of health the next afternoon! We are so blessed with the gift to watch this little girl grow up when her life could have ended too soon. What a reminder of the fragility of life and God's provision!
Following this event, we arrived home and decided to proceed with our vacation plans a day late. We took a much-anticipated trip to Connecticut to spend several days with Matt's sister Julie and her family. Everyone enjoyed relaxing with family, sweet fellowship with friends from church, sight-seeing, and a visit to the beach. At the tail end of our trip, we learned that Grandma Lanz had passed away, and were thankful to make it home for the funeral. May marked the end of a couple different eras this year; the weekend after we laid to rest the last of one generation, my youngest brother Jesse graduated from high school. Time keeps marching on.
Yet another era ended over the summer - that is, the era of my youth as I turned 30, my hair began to gray, and we purchased a full-sized fifteen-passenger van.
We had a fun summer enjoying the change of pace from our school routine. The children did a lot of swimming, we took a couple weekend trips, worked on the landscaping, and completed other various projects. Most things got checked off our summer bucket list, aside from getting Clara potty-trained and going sledding.
Due to an accidental spray of Round-Up in our garden early on in the year, we did not have to worry about vegetable harvest and were able to start up our new school year at the beginning of August. In September, we did manage to put up an unearthly amount of applesauce before heading off on our next adventure.
With the first day of our vacation being shaved off in May, we had skipped our planned visit to the Ark Encounter with plans to return later on in the year. The last weekend in September we traveled to Kentucky for Take II of our 2024 vacation. Enter a broken collarbone the night before (Keenan) and Hurricane Helene. Thankfully we were able to swing through urgent care on our way out and made it to Kentucky as planned. However, the next day presented with torrential downpour and an electrical outage, so it was essentially Take III before we finally made it to the Ark the next day. We all had an absolutely wonderful time and it was a day full of memories, partly due to the light drizzle to help set the tone outside!
Next up in our travel plans was a trip to Oregon in October for my cousin Abby's wedding. This time only Matt and I flew out and called it our anniversary getaway. It was such a lovely time spent with family, friends, and each other! We are grateful to Matt's parents who graciously cared for our children back home. A couple weeks later, we all traveled to Michigan for a weekend spent with good friends. The final trip on our agenda was a quick solo trip to California for one more wedding of a good friend at the beginning of December.
The aforementioned events were the mentionable highlights of our year, but we also spent many days just growing, working, laughing, crying, learning, and making memories with our growing family.
Levi is eight years old and in third grade this year. He remains a reading machine. I frequently use him as a resource when Google isn’t available. When it is time to leave a place, he can be found in front of the bookshelf surrounded by piles of books on the floor. Levi is also learning piano, enjoys working on projects with his Dad, and is often the leader when it comes to “cooperative” play with his siblings. He may look a bit different in his pictures this year because he no longer needs glasses!
Micah is seven years old and a second grader. He is always full of questions and observations, and likes to think things through. He may also carry after his dad with the figure-out-how-everything-works gene. While all the other children compete for attention, he prefers to stay out of the spotlight as the silent observer. Micah is a bundle of quiet, hopping energy; a great playmate to his siblings and friends; and a kindhearted helper. He loves riding his bike and climbing trees, and you can usually find a piece of string in his pocket - because you never know when you might have a chance to figure out a new string trick.
Joanna is six years old and in first grade. She is full of determination, enthusiasm, and her trademark smiles! Joanna is thrilled with anything that sparkles. She loves crafting and baking, and puts an incredible amount of effort into being her little sister’s best friend and caregiver. The girls can usually be found together playing dollies, dressing up, or all the other things little girls do. May it be known, they have already made arrangements to be bridesmaids in each others' weddings. Joanna is becoming quite helpful in the kitchen and recently told me she plans to be a frostingist and sprinklist when she grows up.
Keenan is now four years old and in preschool. He is full of smarts, personality, and innocently obnoxious moments. He is frequently making us smile with his incredible hindsight. “I was just wanting to go to Grandma’s!” shortly after finding out we are heading to Grandma’s, or, “I think we need four pizzas” five minutes after I showed up with four pizzas. Keenan tends to be my gardener and animal lover, and he often melts his mama’s heart with his timely hugs and “I love you, Mommy.” He rarely knows a stranger and his voice knows one level of volume; however, his loud voice made him the man for the job to save his sister’s life in April, so we can’t complain. Despite the large proportion of his life that he spends goofing off, he is somehow learning to read and play the piano, with very little help from me. He plans to be a Travis when he grows up, and he may be on track to reach that aspiration.
Clara is two years old and full of a will and spirit all of her own. Being the youngest of five isn't for the faint of heart, after all. Clara plans to be a girl when she grows up. She is already a girl, actually, and will most likely correct you if you dare to call her Clara. She has been growing so quickly, considering she has been “two-and-a-half” since three months after her second birthday. Clara generally refers to me as "Grandma" since Keenan has willingly agreed to be her baby, thus making her the “mommy.” She can usually be found being Joanna’s shadow and echo. In case I missed Joanna telling me, “I don’t like to do my jobs,” the next moment Clara turns to me with her big matter-of-fact eyes and states, "Us no yike a do jobs." On a more hopeful note, she learned her first Bible verse; we often hear her emphatic recitation, “Sit still, my daughter!”
Matt is still plugging away at the usual - designing power lines for Stanley Consultants in Muscatine, fixing everything that breaks from sheep fences to freebie yo-yos, and loving every moment of being a great husband and daddy. As for me, I have continued in my role as wife, mama, home educator, travel coordinator, etc. And aged a bit, as I may have previously mentioned. But haven’t we all. 2024 has been a good and memorable year for us and we have a lot for which to be thankful.
We pray often for many of you who have lost loved ones, suffered health problems, or dealt with other struggles this year. We rejoice with those of you who are rejoicing. And we hope you all will feel God's grace, mercy, and blessings in this Christmas season and the coming year!
Love, Matt & Stephanie, Levi, Micah, Joanna, Keenan, and Clara Schulz
