Christmas Letter--Goodbye 2014--Hello 2015!!

Alas, I am a little late on the Christmas cards this year so I thought we would just do a quick version of our year.  What a crazy year it has been, too!  Here’s the rundown of the Mancil Family Year for 2014:

Noah turned 4 years old this year.  He started preschool this year and loves it.  He also participated (and I use that term loosely) in soccer.  He is still really loving cars and has quite a few Matchbox cars he loves to play with.  He is Rebecca's buddy during the day while the other kids are in school.  He is a Sunbeam and loves singing time in primary.

Sarah had a crazy year.  She started out the year with a week long hospital stay with Kawasaki Disease which is an inflammatory vascular disease.  Luckily, after treatment she has shown no problems, but we do get to follow up with the Cardiologist for the next few years to make sure.  Sarah has been having some problems with urinary tract infections.  After some testing we also found out that Sarah has Vesicoureteral Reflux which means a valve in her bladder doesn’t work very well and the flow of urine goes up to her kidneys every time she voids.  Luckily, there has been no significant damage to her kidney, but to make sure we get to follow up with the urologist for the next few years in addition to being on a low dose antibiotic for the time being.  Despite the health issues, Sarah is a pretty healthy kid.  She started first grade this year and loves school especially learning how to read.  She participated in soccer and loves taking dance classes.

Daniel had an awesome year.  The greatest accomplishment has been getting Daniel over his peanut, milk and most tree nut food allergies.  Through a local Oral Immunotherapy program an allergist (Dr. Douglas Jones) was able to slowly get Daniel over these allergies which has opened up a whole new world of food for him.  His favorite new food is pizza and he loves eating it every chance he gets.  He still is allergic to cashews, pistachios and we found out a new allergy to Sunflower seeds/oil, but those are not too hard to avoid.  Daniel is in 3^rd grade and loves school.  He also participated in soccer, baseball, basketball and Cub Scouts.

Josh has had a busy year.  He is in 6^th grade and loves school.  He is currently participating in Student Council and orchestra at school.  He is learning how to play the violin.  He loves reading and we are always looking for great book series for him to start.  He participated in soccer and is currently involved in piano and Boy Scouts this year.  He even went on his first overnight Boy Scout camp out with Aaron.  Josh loved it.  We did learn that Josh was not quite ready to be weaned off his epilepsy medication, though.  After being two years seizure free and having a clear EEG test his neurologist wanted to try and wean Josh off his medication.  Unfortunately, he was not ready to be off them when he had a seizure.  Oh well at least we were able to get him back where he needed to be and he is doing great now.  He keeps us on our toes for sure!

Matthew had a wonderful experience this year.  He was participating in a summer program which was located by some railroad tracks.  Every morning Matthew would wave to the train engineers as they drove their train by.  One day a train engineer stopped the train to say hi and give Matthew a lantern, hat, gloves and safety vest.  Matthew was beside himself with excitement.  The local news stations and newspaper picked up the story so Matthew was able to be on TV.  It was such a wonderful experience for him and us.  Because of that news story we were able to take a tour of the UTA Frontrunner facilities and the Union Pacific Engineer training center as well.  Matthew was in heaven.  Matthew was able to attend a special needs summer camp at Camp Kostopolos for two weeks this summer and loved it.  Matthew started 8^th grade this year and loves school.  His favorite thing is the community field trips the Learning Center takes every month.  These special kids are able to go out to lunch and learn how to order from a menu.  After lunch they head over to the grocery store and learn how to do some grocery shopping by following a budget and a grocery list.  Matthew also participates in piano and loves attending his after school program as well as Young Mens where he serves as the 2^nd counselor in the Deacons Quorum presidency.

Rebecca has had a busy year.  She has been the behind the scenes coordinator to make the household run smoothly and to make sure everyone gets to everywhere they need to be at the time they need to be there.  That is not an easy job to have 7 people’s schedules to keep track of!  She keeps our family busy with different activities and experiences.  A few of our favorite have been the Sherman Wayment Fun 5K Run we did as a family.  We also enjoyed doing a few corn mazes and a road trip.  She taught the Sunbeam class in primary every week, but just got released from that calling after doing it for the last three years.  She loves to read, can/bottle and blog to journal about all our family’s activities.  One of her favorite highlights of the year was participating in the 10K Dirty Dash Run at Soldier Hollow this past fall.

Aaron has had a busy year, too.  He is another behind the scenes coordinator that helps in keeping things running smoothly and Rebecca sane.  He continues to work at Hill Air Force Base as an Electrical Engineer.  His current project as Lead Hardware Engineer is developing test stations for software development for airplanes.  He also got the chance to coach Noah’s soccer team and Daniel’s baseball team.  He has volunteered and taught a few classes for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) program at a few different elementary schools in our area.  He currently serves as the Elder’s Quorum President in our ward which keeps him pretty busy as well.

2014 was a crazy year for our family.  We hope 2015 will be a great year for our family and everyone elses, too!