We hope this finds you all well and warm. A lot of exciting things have happened with us this year so we thought it warranted us writing our very first Holiday update letter.
The biggest news for us in 2007 was the birth of our daughter, Jayna on August 22nd 2007. The actual birth was quick - after Catherine's water broke, Jayna was out in 20 minutes! Here is our favorite picture of Jasper holding Jayna for the first time, he was very moved and we think you can see it in his face.
Jasper turned two this year and has grown from a wonderful baby into an amazing toddler. He is the most loving and thoughtful big brother, often times he will hold Jayna's hand in the car and he hugs and kisses Jayna often. Jasper enjoys helping us cook, playing legos, playing his fiddle and guitar, swimming in the "sparkly blue" (pool), digging in the backyard, drawing and going to the bookstore.
Catherine spent most of this year pregnant. The pregnancy was very different this time and the beginning was full of nausea and all day ickiness. Luckily, you forget all of that after birth and now she looks back at the whole experience and thinks, well maybe we could have three. Catherine took 2 months off from teaching fiddle and is now back with a studio of 13 kids between the ages of 5 and 16 and continues to do her web design work from home.
For Chad's birthday this year we treated ourselves to a trip to the Star Wars Celebration in L.A. 2007 was the 30th anniversary of the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope which happens to be the very first movie that both Catherine and Chad saw. Chad continues to perform with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience (DGBX) a few places they performed this year were Rockygrass and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in SF where they performed for over 200,000 people.
As always, you can keep up with our lives here: www.chadmanning.com/mannings/
We hope to see you all in the New Year and wish you much love and many hugs.
Catherine, Chad, Jasper and Jayna