Dear Friends and Family

This Advent finds us waiting not only for the Incarnation but for Diane's dad to be restored to full health after coming out from three weeks of being unconscious since triple by-pass surgery. We are asking the Lord to be merciful to him. The day he woke up was the day that Diane's 3rd grade students spent most of their morning prayer time praying fervently for him. They had also sent her mother letters and drawings of encouragement, and that same day her sisters were reading them to her dad when he awoke. We believe God heard and answered these kids' prayers and all other who have been praying for John Davis. The words that kept coming into her mind are from the chorus of "Eagle’s Wings." And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of His hands. This is our prayer for all of us in this season of waiting.

Diane is working only at St. Luke School this year, teaching music, and also working as a resource teacher. This means she is free to help with reading in the K - 3rd grades, able to work one-on-one with any student who needs someone listen to them read. She loves working full time at St. Lukes. It’s lovely to be there every day and to be more involved with the students.

St Luke's is putting on the musical "Annie" in early March. Diane will be immersed in practices for the months of January and February. The school has been buzzing since she announced that they were doing it. They held auditions before Thanksgiving and the parts have all been announced. She was amazed how thrilled children were that they had any part at all in the show. She only had one sour grape and even she decided to take the plunge and give it a go.

Bob and Diane are enjoying the church family that we're now part of here in D.C. We attend Grace Church, a very small church at the bottom of Georgetown. She bakes Redeemer communion bread for communion each week and we both sing in their choir. Our vicar, David Bird, is from England, and every time he speaks she is reminded of John Ratings in Wargrave.

In October Diane had a terrible time with laryngitis. The doctor said she should stay home on complete vocal rest for at least one day while the medicine kicked in. That was the day that the Kindergarten had music. When she arrived at school the next day, the school secretary had a story to tell her. It seems that the Kindergarten were told that she had lost her voice. One child went home and said to his Mom in a very worried tone, "Mom, did you hear what happened at school today? The music teacher lost her voice and no one can find it!!" The child was very worried, but was so delighted to see Diane the next week with her voice intact. Diane was too!

Bob's had a busy year in the voluntary position of President of FCCA Foxhall Community Citizen's Association www.foxhall.org. A private bilingual elementary school RCIS moved into an empty public school, plus he has worked on 10-year campus plan renewals for two nearby universities . He re-instituted an FCCA area-wide picnic and seasonal family festivities at Easter & Halloween, and achieved broad local consensus on overdue traffic management changes, to reduce the impact of out-of-district commuters on our narrow Foxhall Village side streets.

At church Bob took on the Public Relations portfolio which includes membership and visitor database, website www.GraceDC.org and publicity for weekly year-round "Thank God Its Friday", Fall Restaurant Festival, Spring Silent Auction and seasonal poetry/music recital series. Together with Meagan, he is now helping his mother Mary Andrew to spread her "SimpliReading" adult to student "one-on-one" as a franchise to other trained teachers via a new website.

Meagan will turn 21 this December. She's back home with us in D.C. after a long year of being overworked and underpaid in New Mexico. Despite the fact that she loved Albuquerque’s warm weather, clean air, and beautiful mountains, D.C. is a happier place for her. She’s back in school full-time working on a B.S. in cross-cultural psychology. She also holds down a number of jobs. Meagan is one of the head servers at "Silver Diner" in Clarendon, VA and has just been promoted to shift supervisor, a position that she will begin training for just as soon as her exams are over in mid-December. In addition to working at the restaurant three or four nights per week, she has been working from home as an editorial reviewer & writer for DynCorp. This position has worked out well in that she can choose her own hours, and adjust them on weeks when school demands change.

A final source of extra income is her continued work as web master for the New Mexico Business Journal www.nmbiz.com. Overworked and underpaid aside, it’s a good way to get experience and the long-term work will become a nice addition to her resume. Overall, Meagan is happy and healthy, enjoying school and work and still finding time to have fun with her boyfriend and friends, as evidenced by a recent Thanksgiving vacation trip to Cancun

Colin graduated from the D.C. Public School system after three years at Duke Ellington School of the Arts (as a vocal music major) and a final year at Woodrow Wilson High School (to balance out arts with academics). He is now working as an Assistant Manager at a United Artists movie ten-plex in Bethesda, MD, saving up to buy a car - now concluding a deal on a 1987 Honda Civic. He is working on getting a similar position closer to home and has his eye on a new 3,000 seat complex in the Millenium Partners project at the old Georgetown Incinerator, now under construction across from Grace Church (on Wisconsin Ave between C&O Canal & the Potomac).

Our dogs Chester and Suzie still dutifully set the pattern of our daily lives, reminding us the 5:30 am alarm that wakes us is also time to take them out and then promptly feed them, even before putting on the coffee pot. Last thing at night we take a walk around the block before bed.

Tenant ChrisAnne (in our walk-out basement Efficiency) graduates from A.U. law school soon, but wants to stay on, as we are one of the few landlords who will allow her to keep elderly dog Duchess, a deaf Dalmation who loves to romp with our dogs in the fenced-in back yard.

Except for our dogs, we'll all be down in Texas at Christmas with the Davis clan. We trust this season finds you all well, at peace, nurtured by God, your friends, family and neighbors.