Merry Christmas to one and all!

Christmas 2011

Dear family and friends,

The time comes again to attempt to get the year into a small space. Maybe I would say this year was a year of changes. January brought Jenny looking actively for a new job as the stress was wearing her out . The Illinois Veteran's Home had an opening right away, so in the middle of May after some time off for Dan's checkups and graduation for a niece, she started working as a geriatrician full time. There is actually more time in the evenings now to enjoy one another and get some other things done since call is only 1 week a month on average.

More change happened in the spring as our little church closed it's doors and we went church hunting again. It was very tempting to head back south to Quincy, but we ended up finding a place just north of here in Dallas City. It teaches the Bible and they are keeping things going without a pastor right now. Jenny did a reading for the Christmas program, which turned out well. It was kind of like those old days with the Christmas program only there wasn't any memorization involved. Amazing how things do come back, though. Being in debate in high school helped her with the presentation and she wasn't as nervous as the old days.

More change happened in November over Veteran's Day weekend with a wedding in Raleigh for Jenny's niece, Connie. She and her fiance won a free wedding in a contest that Connie entered at the last minute (last night possible), so, even though none of us were from there, we had a gathering in the South to get the 2 started off in a new life together. We are all very grateful for the generosity of the Raleigh people for the arrangements, knowing that we can't tell our friends to use them since we don't live there. Jenny's brother recommended going home and doing an random act of kindness as a way to share the generosity.

After the veteran's holiday, we took some time to do maintenance on our own marriage. Many tips were learned and a good time of getting away to focus on each other brought significant changes to our marriage. It was such an influential weekend that Jenny signed up for being a group coordinator for future weekends. That just means Y’all can get a good rate while having a great time wherever you want to go! We recommend it any couple: engaged, just married, LONG married, or just feels like long married—we had a couple who was married 39 years there our weekend, and another one less than 1 week (thinking of that lovely niece from Nov 11 during that time as this couple got married on Nov 12). The link is www.familylife.com/groups/JAllen. We hope many of you take advantage of it because the natural progression of a relationship is to isolation. We want oneness. (We learned that!) Check out the website if you're even curious.

As the year comes to an end, we remember the reason we celebrate. May the small way that Christ came begin to grow in you this year more and more as we know Him more and more. A personal relationship with the Baby born in Bethlehem is a life changing experience that continues year after year.

Christmas Blessings!
Dan & Jenny
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