CHRISTMAS 2011

It looks a lot like Christmas around here this year with all the snow we have on the ground. And as we prepare to celebrate the Good News Of Great Joy we extend our wishes for a blessed celebration of our Lord’s birth and look forward to hearing from you and learning of the happenings in your lives this past year.
For the two of us it has been a year of enjoying family and friends. We made two trips of some distance . In April, we traveled to Casa Grande, Arizona to see Paul’s brother Cecil and wife, Mary Ann’s new winter home. While there we also saw Lee’s youngest sister Carol and husband Al , who also winter in Arizona. Together all 6 of us enjoyed watching the Rockies in a game at their new Spring training site in Scottsdale.
In July, Cecil & Mary Anne traveled with us to Vulcan, Alberta where we visited Lee’s sister Esther . Esther took us on a grand tour of Southern Alberta. Highlights included a visit to Drumheller where we toured the Royal Tyrell Museum, Canada’s great dinosaur museum over which nephew Jason Martin is managing director and we also went to the magnificent performance of their open air Passion Play in the Canadian badlands outside of Drumheller.
August saw us in Aurora attending sister Deloris and husband Bob DeLapp’s 25th anniversary celebration which they turned into a family reunion of the Tapey, Corum, and DeLapp families. A fun time for all.
And of course ... Everyone had to come to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.
The most important event in the year occurred on Easter Sunday when the entire family gathered at the Worship service of Loveland Grace Community Church. Robin sang, Savannah participated in a moving stix routine that portrayed the events of passion week in pantomime. At the closing of the service there was the moment in which young people proclaimed their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and were Baptized. Gary Glover, the pastor gave Paul the privilege and joy of Baptizing his two grandchildren Cody and Savannah.
Otherwise it has been rather an uneventful year.We have enjoyed being a part of the Johnstown United Methodist Church which is a vital church with a good age spread, lots of little kids(sometimes as many as 30 come up for children’s moments).
There has been some sadness in the year as we mourned the passing of cousin
Gladys’ Pilkington’s husband Jim and more than a dozen dear friends and colleagues
to their heavenly home. Another sadness was attending the closing service of Bethel
Church in Boulder which we served in the 70's . It was there we hosted the first out of Canada reunion of Lee’s family.

We keep the roads between Greeley, Cheyenne and Loveland busy attending grandkid’s events. On the Nelson side, we saw our first born grandchild Annie graduate with honors from East High and get comfortably settled into the dorm at Colorado State University in Fort Collins where she is a freshman majoring in Human Development and working at the Library(ala Grampa T.) She seems to be doing well. Caitlin is a busy senior. She is the Editor of the School yearbook and she was Co-Captain and Libero of the Varsity Volleyball Team at East. She is looking forward to a trip to Italy with her Art Teacher and classmates at the end of the school year. Jenny is our two sport person. She has done double duty in both Volleyball and Basketball. She played full games with the J.V.’s in Volleyball and then subbed on the varsity team...like wise she is doing now basically the same thing at the Post in Basketball. She is co- captain of the J. V.’s. Melody is still teaching 4th graders and Dan is doing full time Computer Tech work .
On the Storm side, Cody is involved in cycling & videography outside of school work. He has done strenuous mountain biking and is constantly learning new tricks on his Unicycle. In video, he has formed his own company and has photographed friends, others and helped edit a Dr’s surgical tape. He is set up to do a wedding soon. On the side he has been designing T-shirts. Little sis Savannah who turned thirteen this year is following in her older cousins’ footsteps. She and her twin best friends were the only seventh graders who played Volleyball on both the B team and the A team at New Vision Charter Middle School. All 5 grand kids seem to be doing well academically.
Robin and Jeff both have been on the design team involved in the remodeling of a Lumberyard warehouse into a beautiful large Church building with fantastic space.(a real blessing after several years worshiping in the auditorium of a neighboring middle school because they had outgrown the worship space in their building) By the time you receive this they should be in their new sanctuary. Robin is ecstatic about the room she will have as the Administrative Assistant of Grace Community Church. Jeff continues his work as Art Director of GROUP Magazine and being involved in their youth ministry department.
It’s been a good year and we pray that you will all have a Joy Filled Celebration of our Savior’s Birth and Blessed New Year.

Paul & Lee