Wow another year , and a busy yet wonderful season of Christmas have just passed. I meant to update the blog with what was happening, but just one thing after another and I just couldn’t keep up. Well, it looks like a series of events are just going to happen pretty soon, and I am very excited about. I don’t want to keep piling things up to write about, but I don’t have enough time to tell every detail. So I be brief.

Let’s started with Thanksgiving. We didn’t have a church retreat this year. For the whole long break, we hang out, stayed up late, played lots of Bomberman on Playstation 3. It was a lot of fun. We spent Thanksgiving day and eating dinner at Mom and Dad. It was great.

Then started Christmas. Grace was very excited and wanted to decorate the Christmas tree this year. She decorated it all by herself and did a wonderful job. Tis the season, our church had the annual Bible Memorization contest. This year it was only 8 verse in Psalm. That was quite fun.

Christmas is always a busy season at church as we prepared for the annual special Christmas program. This year, we did not just one drama as the main program. We had carols combined with worships, we have choir songs, children songs, duet, trio, fun skit, sermon… Due to the complication of choosing the location to held the Christmas program, we had the service early than previous year, on the 19th. I felt like Christmas came too soon, and we didn’t have enough time to practice. It seemed overwhelming, but all things came together at the end. We had 200+ attendees, and dinner was served afterward. It was great.

Since we had early Christmas celebration, we felt much relax on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We went to Winter Wonderland, a Christmas Special at New Life Church. It was packed!! They had 3 services, back to back, and traffic was a mess. The attendance was 14000+ for 3 services. We hang out at home, open presents on Christmas Day, and have Christmas lunch at Mom and Dad. It was good time.

Before the year ended, the youth hang out and had dinner together at TGI Friday’s. The church also celebrated the birthday of everyone in 4th quarter. It was funny to see Benjamin lined up to receive his birthday card.

To celebrate the New Year, the youth hang out at Duc-Huyen’s house. We had foods, played gift exchange, and Anh Duc showed pictures of his trip in Iraq. It was quite funny that he mixed some quite disturbed pictures among the scenery pictures.

So… 2010 has started. I’m very excited for what’s ahead. There are goals, resolution to achieve, grace and blessings to come, lessons to learn. I am looking forward to all of it, and I want to document them all here, as much as I can. See you in 2010. Have wonderful New Year, you!

See pictures:
Christmas Program at church
Winter Wonderland
Christmas with Family
Year End

How’s the New Year treating you? Any better than 2008 yet?  Maybe it’s too early to say, but for me, so far so good. I can’t wait to experience what God have in store for me. I know that they are all good as He promised:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

So, I’m looking forward to each day, counting each day, each blessings. This is how my New Year started off:

• New Year Party, foods, and activities with the Youth Group at Duc-Huyen’s house. Fun fun time! Trading midnight kiss with my wife to start the New Year.
• Snowboard and Hot Springs on New Year Day. This was a special treat from my sister Linh and her husband Peter. We went snowboarding and hit some powder slope at Winter Park on New Year Day, and at Copper Mountain on and 2nd. We then met up with my parents at Glenwood Springs enjoying the hot springs. It was fun, and relaxing. On that New Year Day, it was quite a story when a man went skiing at Vail, and the chair lift that he was on somehow wasn’t in the correct position. It tipped him over and he was caught dangling on the chair lift, but his pants was yanked down to the knee. Yeah, it’s a bizarre story. I feel sorry for the guy, but can’t help to giggle a little. Link to the story can be found here, but only if you don’t mind seeing a middle-age man bare bottom. Uhh.. kids, it’s not for you! This ain’t Trix! So, stay away, or stay… in school!
• Say Goodbye to friends who deployed to Iraq. I met Vu not even a year yet, right after he got back from the Iraq in January 2008. Anh Duc is now deployed. Now he’s deployed again. I appreciate them very much for risking their lives for us, while I am here at home, safe, and writing blog. I promised to pray for them, so I did, but hopefully I remember to pray more often, more consistent.
• Get in touch with long time friends.. I haven’t in contact with a close friend of mine for couple months, and then I took sometime to write him,  he wrote back and said he recently just had bad sinus problem with ended up in surgery. Man, such friend I am!! I’m glad he’s recovering well and doing fine.
• Reconnect with my 2 ESL (English as Second Language) teachers. “Two??” you asked? Yeah, two. I was a very stupid student… Hahaha… Actually, one was my ESL teacher in Columbus, GA and I was in her class for 4 months. Then, my family moved to Colorado and that where I got the second ESL teacher. It was good to reconnect with them both, and it was my thanks to them for helping/teaching me then. Otherwise, this is what you read from my blog: “Hu hu hu… Ở Mỹ mấy năm trời rồi mà tiếng Anh hõng biết gì hết, mà tiếng Việt cũng quên luôn…Khổ quá đi!!”  …  Now thoughts are running in my head: my teachers are reading my blog. They are going to notice my fragments, grammers. Oh no… this is like school years all over.
• Working!… because I still have a job, a mouth to eat, and a family to take care. This is a good thing!

… all of those are in only few days of 2009, and there are much much more to come. I’ll keep you posted. You see, somehow I sense I will like the 2009.

… and The Le’s Family makes a joyfully shout-out to all of their relatives and friends: “HAPPY NEW YEAR! …. and Good Night!”