2007: The Year in Review

This year, I came the closest I've ever gotten to sending Christmas cards: I actually bought a box of them and started compiling an address list. And that's as far as it got. Sigh. Perhaps next year I'll actually manage to send some off. In the meantime, those of you who know and love us in spite of our non-card-sending faults will have to get our family news the old-fashioned way: by reading our blog.


Phillip is in the second year of a biomedical engineering* doctorate program at USC and has spent the last year analyzing data to develop a model of the motor circuits in the spinal cord. He hopes to be done with his PhD in about three more years. He is currently serving as the financial clerk in our ward and he enjoys working closely with our bishop. He really admires Bishop Muhlestein's genuine love for the ward members, and hopes some of the bishop's charitable nature will rub off on him as the months go by.

Phillip loves being a new daddy, and you should see how excited Baby gets when he walks in the door at night. He also discovered at a recent progressive dinner that, after years of insisting he is a dog person, he actually likes cats, too. Life truly is full of surprises.

*Biomedical engineering involves the technical side of medicine: designing medical equipment, new drugs, prosthetic devices, etc.

This photo is pretty indicative of Kimberly's year. After nearly three decades of coming and going pretty much as she pleased, it was a big change to suddenly have every day's plans at the mercy of another person's nap schedule and general whims. It was a tough adjustment at first, but she wouldn't trade the privilege of being a stay-home mom experiencing all of Joy's giggles, discoveries, and milestones. Baby smiles beat a morning commute any day.

When she's not hosting board book readings or whipping up gourmet meals of pureed bananas and squash, Kimberly likes to cook grown-up food, post on two blogs (and comment on many others), and work a few hours a week for Tactara** through our home computer. She also loves her current assignment to work with the 12- and 13-year-old young women at church. They're sweet girls who keep Kimberly young.

**Tactara is the telecom company Kimberly worked for full-time before Joy arrived.

In the last twelve months, Joy has grown from a rather inert newborn to a full-blown, stair-climbing, chaos-causing, heart-warming toddler. She has taken at least one step but still prefers to crawl, and she enjoys going for walks outside in Mama's backpack carrier (thank goodness we live in So Cal, where you can go for a pleasant stroll in the middle of winter). Joy likes book-related activities (listening, perusing, pulling them off shelves), and she is a definite over-achiever in the tooth department. We just discovered she has four molars, making twelve teeth total.

Happy New Year to you and yours from the Hendricksons. We feel so blessed, and we're looking forward to another great year.