2006 in review...

Manak Family Christmas Letter

2006

Dear Family and Friends,

2006 has been a busy and exciting year for our family! Starting out the year in Virginia, we’ve found ourselves in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina…a trip across the country and now California and the Pacific Ocean! Looking back over the year, Jason and I are blessed and humbled to see many ways that God has lead and guided our lives.

In March, Jason and I took a little vacation down to Tennessee to visit our friends the Fisher’s and then on to see my cute little niece, Shaelyn, and her mother Kim. It was awesome to visit with them! Then we traveled on to Savannah, Georgia…the city where Jason and I fell in love…and started dating. We visited with the Thigpen’s and saw many of the places Jason enjoyed including the cathedral and Fr. Clark, the priest Jason would write to me about and the Dojo and Sensei where Jason trained in Jujitsu. Then on our way back to Virginia we stopped in Charleston, South Carolina for a night and ate at a really good restaurant near the river. The next day, on our way home, we had lunch at an abandoned beach. It was a break we both needed and we returned ready to enjoy the coming of the new addition to our family.

The biggest highlight of our year was the birth of our firstborn son. Last year on September 23rd, we found out God had added a member to our family! The morning sickness was tough, but otherwise the pregnancy was healthy. It was such an awesome experience to feel our baby growing inside me. Even in the womb I could tell our baby was a very calm and loving child. On May 5th, we met our little son, Christopher Jason, for the first time! It was amazing for Jason and me to welcome our son into the world. I recovered quickly, but Christopher had to return to the hospital 5 days after his birth for some UV treatments over the next two days.

It was during the two days that Christopher was receiving his UV treatments that Jason was accepted to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California. It is the best school in the country for a Masters Degree in Computer Animation and quite an achievement to be accepted. After much prayer, we decided to go for the 2 year program. After the decision to go was made, God put everything else into place…literally. My friend, Shannon and two of her friends rented our townhouse and I was able to find a place online (thanks to Craigslist.com and God’s direction) for us to live in Pacifica, California, which is about 15 miles south of San Francisco City! American Life League also kept Jason employed even though he’d be working long distance while attending classes. It was so clear to us that this was where God was leading us!

In June, before the move, we went on the annual McCaffrey vacation to the beach! Mommom & Daddad, my Grandparents, rented a house in North Carolina on the Outer Banks for all of us to enjoy. It was Christopher’s first time on the beach! And he went right to sleep…which must have meant he loved it. Being together with family was such a joy and we created many wonderful memories that week.

In mid August, Jason drove across the country with his Dad while Christopher and I flew. We stopped in Denver, CO to visit Jason’s family and then continued to California. Our 2 bedroom apartment is about two blocks from Sharp Park Beach and overlooks Sharp Park Golf Course. It is so beautiful that it doesn’t really feel three thousand miles from our home in Stafford, Virginia…but more like a long vacation. Our Church is St. Dominic’s, a Dominican Monastery in the city of San Francisco. The priests are awesome and the choir is so beautiful. We are slowly meeting new people and making new friends.

Jason is really enjoying school at the Academy of Art. His teachers are amazing and so are his classmates and other contacts he is making. He met a couple of guys who worked on Cars, the newest film by Pixar, and a guy who worked at Disney for many years and helped make Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and the Lion King. Jason takes BART (the Bay Area Rapid Transit System – kinda like the metro) into the city 3-4 days a week. The school is located in the middle of the Financial District, which is one of the really nice areas in the city.

In October my brother, Duke, got married to a wonderful young woman, Amanda (Mandie). It was great to witness this joyful event! They went on their honeymoon to the Pocono Mountains and are now settled in Mount Jackson, Virginia. It was a lot of fun to go back to the East Coast and see family and friends.

This year for Thanksgiving, Jason’s family came out here as well as my friend, Shellie and her wonderful 8 year old daughter, Callie. It was so nice to see family and friends again…and to show off the surroundings of our new life. Thanksgiving weekend we went to Nevada to visit Grandpa Joe and Granmarie, Jason’s grandparents. It was an awesome visit and we even got to see snow over the Sierra’s on our way home!

Christmas we will be staying here…close to home…and enjoying our first Christmas as a small family! We are looking forward to getting our Christmas Tree on Gaudate Sunday and especially attending Midnight Mass at St. Dominic’s! Jason gets half of January off of school, so we are hoping to visit Lake Tahoe for a family weekend away in January!

We wish you all a very blessed and joyful Christmas and New Year! Please keep us in your prayers and may God bless you!

Love in Christ,Jason, Christen & Christopher Manak