Welcome to the updated version of the Cash family Christmas letter. The convenient (and environmentally friendly) world wide web, helped make the decision to go paperless easy. We’re still running late, our calendars are jammed packed, and Christmas is right around the corner. TYPICAL! But for now, I will breathe in, breathe out, and reminisce on the things that have made us smile in 2007. Come with me….
In January, we started off the year by enjoying family time in Palm Springs. Swimming in January!? The girls were ecstatic. Sarah turned 3 and started speech therapy through the Torrance Unified School District. If you read the last couple of Christmas letters, you know she spoke her own language, and Mommy was the only interpreter. Over the last year she has made leaps and bounds. Her pronunciation of letters is getting better all the time and her teacher has hopes of “graduating” her early. Sarah finally started to grow, too. She’s still my runt, but getting taller. She’s finally wearing the right sized clothes for her age (just barely). She likes playing with her babies, dressing up with friends, and drawing pictures, and she can’t wait for her sisters to get home from school – they’re her favorite things to play with.
Over the summer, we took our yearly jaunt to Lake Mojave. As usual, we had a blast, always wishing for one more day. The time with such treasured friends and family seems to get shorter every summer. There was much swimming, sunning, sea dooing, tubing, skiing, wakeboarding, and kneeboarding. Everyone in our family was pulled behind a boat at some point. The girls especially liked the tube – or should I say “three person couch” 
During Sarah’s ride, she fell asleep!
Abigail has stretched herself this past year. Kneeboarding at Lake Mojave was only one of the many new things she tried and achieved. She began learning guitar, and in the process was filmed for a children’s instructional DVD. (You can see her at www.kidsworshipguitar.com.) She played a dancing napkin in this summer’s church production of Beauty and the Beast, and most recently portrayed Alice in our church’s Christmas production of The Best Christmas Pageant Yet. She was awesome! Abigail turned 8 in August, and had her first slumber party. High School Musical 2 premiered on her birthday (I’m sure Disney was thinking of her and her party when they scheduled the premiere). She also scored her first goal this soccer season. Abigail’s in the third grade now and she is continuing to excel across the board.
Esther has followed suit in doing new things. One of her proud achievements was finally swimming with confidence and without floaties (jumping off the boat at the lake and swimming to shore again and again…and making it all the way across Papa’s pool). She made some fast friends with the Bancroft twins this summer (Hi, Ellie and Emma!) and did lots of tubing with them at the lake. Alongside big sis, Esther also performed in the two productions this year. She played a wolf and a cup saucer (aka enchanted object) in Beauty and the Beast, and starred as Gladys Herdman in The Best Christmas Pageant Yet. This was a fairly big role for a young 6 year old, and she nailed it. Esther is a reader now. She’s moving right along in first grade, and loving it. She also just finished her first season of soccer. She enjoyed playing and scored lots of goals (she seemed really motivated by Daddy’s offer of an Icee for each goal). Similar to Abigail, you can find Esther on the world wide web where she ‘modeled’ for a cap and gown company. (www.rhymeuniversity.com – look under t-shirts and keepsakes)
Brandon began a PHD program this year at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. It will be a slow process, but he’ll get there. He’s still busy at the church, where we all continue to enjoy the new facility. It has been such a blessing to have our own building. This year, he was honored to preach at a plenary session of the Evangelical Homiletic Society’s annual conference. He also had a paper published in the EHS journal. With all of the reading that comes with a PHD program, he tends to spend his free time reading books rather than playing golf. Golf is pretty much a fond memory at this stage of life.
I’ve been trying to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. I taught the third and fourth graders in our Pioneer Club at church, and continue to stay busy on the worship team. I repeated as a chairperson on the PTA at the girls’ school and stay involved with the women’s Bible study at church. I also had a great time leading Vacation Bible School for the pre-schoolers. “Mommy” got to participate in the Christmas play this year as well. I played Alice’s mom – I think I was type-casted. The big 3-0 snuck up on me this year, and Brandon surprised me with a ticket to fly up and celebrate with my twin sister, Amanda in Sacramento.
Together, Brandon and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in July. We celebrated by going back to New York, where we had visited on our honeymoon. Auntie Manda came to stay with the girls, and we enjoyed 5 days away. We took in a Mets game (just so happened the Dodgers were in town, too) and even wore our Dodger jerseys to the game – a little heckling is a small price to pay for staying true to the “boys in blue.” We stayed just off Times Square, took in a Broadway show, a jazz club (to see a wonderful performance by one of Brandon’s high school friends whose now a Broadway star www.stephaniejblock.com) , walked up to Central Park, traveled down to the World Trade Center, and simply took in the city. It was an awesome way to celebrate 10 great years. We’re already looking forward to ten years from now, when we can report on our 20th anniversary visit to the Big Apple.
Perhaps the biggest smile for the Cash family came in October, when we found out I was expecting baby #4. Everyone is excited, and no, we weren’t trying for a boy. Although the girls all say that a boy would be nice, they also say a girl would be fine, too. I’m not holding my breath. The due date is June 9th.
There has been much to smile about this year. God has continued to bless beyond all that we ask or imagine; we pray He’s smiling down on your family as well. We hope you can take time this season to reflect on the smiles you’ve had this last year, and we pray for many more smiles in 2008. You can keep up with our family throughout the year at my blog, where I keep a casual account of the day to day craziness of our life. www.courtneycash.wordpress.com
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
With all of our love,
Brandon, Courtney, Abigail, Esther, Sarah, and #4
