Our family's first Christmas letter! We weren't sure whether to start the sharing from one year ago (as Christmas letters traditionally do), or on July 1, when we got married. But I (Hannah) figured that graduation was a significant enough event to warrant starting at.

    We both walked across the stage to recieve diploma-looking objects on May 5, and by the end of the summer we had both officially graduated from college! It was satisfying to be done after 3 (for Nate) and 4 (for Hannah) years of work. There are some things not to miss about college life, and some things we do, like free concerts and proximity of friends.

    This definitely qualifies as the biggest day of the year: We got married on July 1, with Grandpa Van Drunen doing the ceremony. Many family and friends were there to celebrate with us.

    July was a busy month. Besides the wedding, we had a second reception at Nate's family's church in Illinois, Mom (Hannah's) was diagnosed with breast cancer, we survived the long hot drive from Sioux Center to Sunnyside, and started settling into a new house and new town. The move went well; Mom and Dad (Hooyer) and Heather and Holly drove with a trailer full of our stuff with us to Washington. School folks helped us unload the trailer. It took 20 minutes (much more if you count organizing).

    The first few weeks we focused on the settling in process- everything from setting up bank accounts and stocking the cupboards to visiting churches. We found a congregation that felt like home as members of Faith Community Church in Zillah (about a 20 min. drive from our house). We have been blessed by the people there, who have fed us many Sunday dinners, made sure we were getting settled in, and included us in the church right away. We have enjoyed singing in a double quartet and Hannah plays violin sometimes.

    Within a few weeks of our move, Nathan was employed as a computer programmer. As far as I can see, he types nonsense into the computer all day and gets paid for it. He's learning to make the computer draw maps for the Weather Service's website.

    Hannah is experiencing the joys ("Mrs. VW, band is my favorite subject.") and challenges ("You're taking away our right to pee!") of her first year of teaching. The first concert was October 26, and it went well. The Christmas concert is coming up soon — December 7 — hopefully everyone will be ready! The school staff is a very supportive (and fun!) group.

    We have enjoyed exploring the area and taking pictures of things we discover.

    In October we traveled to Lynden. Hannah attended the CSI teachers' conference, and Nate brought along his computer and worked. We stayed at Tom and Karlene's house (Nate's aunt and uncle), and Grandpa and Grandma Vander Wilt were there from Pella! It was great to see family. We got to spend a day in Vancouver with them.

    The weekend before Thanksgiving we made a spontaneous trip to Spokane to see Matt, Laura and Laura's parents, and for Thanksgiving day we ate and played games with friends from church.

    We are enjoying watching the seasons change in our new home; the asparagus fields turned from green to orange, and now to white with our first snow!

This has really been a year full of changes and blessings. When I heard this verse recently it reminded me of this year, and that God doesn't change even when a lot of other things do.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with

whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." -James 1:17

We hope you have a great Christmas season. Take time to celebrate the very good gift, Christ!

          Love,