Christmas 2017
Departure went smoothly, but then the rocking began. The increasingly small boat on it’s 3+ hour tour was going up and down like a teeter-totter as the waves beat against the side of the vessel. The once energetic passengers went from excitedly staring at the colossal Indian Ocean, to looking down at the sea sprayed deck as the sensation of nausea continued to grow. Suddenly, a forceful blast of seawater like a geyser is seen on the horizon. The boat accelerates. The passengers gasp. Whales are spotted. Turning to look out at the waves, we admire the beauty and grace of the blue whales, the largest animals on earth. Then the nausea ensues. Why don’t I feel better? This is supposed to be fun! Why can’t I see more of the whale? Where is Gilligan’s Island, because I am ready for a landing?
Do you ever feel like you are just trying to make it through the day? Sometimes our days can be monotonous and occasionally painful. Sometimes we get so caught up in what is on the surface that we miss what is below, which has deeper meaning and significance. This year we are learning to Behold the whole picture, to take a step back and contemplate what lies beneath. Welcome to the Farley Family Christmas Letter 2017, where we will take you through the surface picture of our year and hope to offer some deeper perspective too.
Busyness: Whether it is running to and from baseball, soccer, and basketball for our boys, there is not much to describe as a down season. Highlights: Griffin (8) applied the midseason tournament winning tag at home plate. Bryce (10) scored 6 goals in the season ending tournament in soccer. Garrett (12) started his baseball season with 7 RBIs in his first 3 games and started a triple play at first base. The boys enjoy playing piano (Garrett plays guitar too), Legos, X-Wing miniatures game, drawing, and running in the neighborhood with their parents. During a few paint nights out, Joy brought home her creations to the applause of her 4 boys. Brett continues to plan men’s baseball games a few times a year where he competes and experiences camaraderie with other dads.
Education: We continue to homeschool our third, fifth, and seventh graders through a local charter and utilize Classical Conversations (CC), a weekly dose of community of like-minded families. Garrett is in the CC Challenge program this year. His highlights are geography, rhetoric, and science. Joy is tutoring once a week both CC Foundations for Griffin’s class and CC Essentials (writing/grammar) for Bryce and Griffin’s class. Grammy and Poppy, after attending the LA homeschool conference with us, have taught the boys a couple of times a month apologetics and animal science. Garrett and Bryce competed in Science Olympiad and are preparing again for the coming year. We still enjoy learning as a family.
Home Remodel: A project that began with meetings with our contractor and an architect last November reached reality this October as we achieved city approval and broke ground on our 600 sq ft addition and remodel of four other rooms. When the dust settles next April-ish, we will have a new master bedroom/bathroom and a school room. In the meantime, we have visited many Pinterest boards and taken trips to home improvement stores selecting paint, doors, faucets, lighting, roofing, and flooring. There is a reason they say you need to have a solid foundation in your marriage before undertaking such a task. School continues to press on despite the chaos. A favorite memory is the boys shooting each other with nerf guns to the drum of the jackhammers outside.
Our work: Joy works one day a week doing the intake exams on refugees coming into our county, mostly now from Afghanistan. She has had two nurse practitioners work under her this year and work has spilled over into a few partial days of computer messages. Brett worked this year exclusively as a hospitalist. His group recently hired seven new full-time quality staff who are all fresh out of residency. This refreshing bolus of new faces has given Brett the opportunity to do some informal mentoring as they learn the system. Brett enjoys serving on the deacon board at our church where he bonded with the guys and gleaned wisdom as they discuss and make decisions together. The boys have thankfully taken on more chores to help things run smoothly and actually enjoy cooking.
Loved Ones: In June, we got word that Joy’s grandfather was very sick. Thankfully, our plates were able to be cleared to make an emergency road trip out to Idaho to be with him and family in his final moments and for the ensuing funeral. The boys enjoyed a couple weeks of summer farm life which just happens to be in their favorite place to do fireworks! A special moment was driving Grandpa’s Model A in the Fourth of July parade, with the boys, decked out in their holiday best from Walmart, tossing candy to on lookers. Another benefit of the gathering was the opportunity to meet Sophia, our newest niece and first Sundsmo girl, courtesy of Joy’s sister Alecia and Matt (way to break the trend after five boys). We also said goodbye to Theo the cat this year. Theo, after many walks to the park to watch us play tennis, didn’t make it back one day crossing the road. Now we are just enjoying our cat Leia.
Destinations: As a family that struggled to drive more than a couple of hours, we put that to rest this year driving to Los Angeles where we visited Universal Studios and two Presidential Libraries, learned the ways of the X-Wing miniatures game from Adrian, and bolstered our home education with a conference. Little did we know that two weeks later we would drive 12 hours to Idaho with Brett rocking to his old 90s music mixes on cassette tape (yes we still have a tape deck in our car!). We rounded out our travels by flying 20+ hours to Sri Lanka (merely halfway around the world) to spend two weeks over Thanksgiving with Joy’s brother’s family. Aaron and Kaarli did an awesome job hosting us and showing us the island country. We had several firsts: tried new foods with our fingers, drank spicy water, trapezed, safaried, surfed, whale watched, hiked to temples, visited our Compassion child’s site and family, and discovered leeches. But the kids favorite part was still getting to spend time with their cousins.
Like our viewpoint in the boat seeing only a sliver of the massive blue whale, when we look beneath our daily routines, we see people made in God’s image. Through each of our behold categories, we can stop to behold people that we would not otherwise see. God has placed each of us in our unique time and place in history and prepared good things for us to do. All of the things that we do can be great things to celebrate, but they can easily become things that we behold or treasure above all else. Where our treasure is that is where our hearts will be also. John 1:29 says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” That lamb was Jesus, born on Christmas for our benefit. What are you beholding this Christmas? This New Year? Look for what lies beneath…where God is already at work. “Behold, I am doing a new thing” Isaiah 43:19 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love, the Farleys: Brett and Joy, Garrett, Bryce, Griffin
