Our Year in Review

The Scott family enjoyed 2012 which seemed to rapidly whiz by.  We were fortunate enough to be blessed with some nice memories for the year that we’d like to share with you.

  Disney World

One of the most exciting happenings we enjoyed was a family trip to Disney World where we also celebrated our 20^th wedding anniversary with a meal inside Cinderella’s Castle at the Royal Table, and the night before at the French Café in EPCOT where we had enjoyed a meal 19 years ago on our last Disney trip. Half the fun and adventure was planning the trip while keeping it a secret to surprise the kids, which we pulled off with a jumping-up-and-down squeals of excitement reaction we caught on tape.

We decided to go ahead and do the Disney vacation this year because Tere’s parents once again provided a beach vacation for the extended family to the Isle of Palms in South Carolina, which when you look at the map is just a “few short” hours up the Atlantic Coast.  Since we were already on that side of the world, we decided to extend the trip a bit.

Musical Working Vacation

The other big trip we took this year was another working vacation musical tour in Wisconsin.  John played 18 gigs in Sheboygan, Milwaukee, Door County, Marquette and Appleton while Tere and the kids enjoyed Lake Michigan, Sturgeon Bay and a hotel’s indoor waterpark.

Concert of the Year

For a couple who hardly ever gets time alone, to the point of sharing their 20^th anniversary with children and planning a Wisconsin vacation around work, John and Tere got to actually have one date night to see former Beatle Paul McCartney in concert when he came to St. Louis. The kids enjoyed a sleepover with grandma and grandpa.  The concert was amazing, though someone has forgotten to tell this very energetic, youthful McCartney that he is 70.  What a talented entertainer he still is.

John – This year John has begun to see his solo music career take off.  It is growing, and he has added solo live musicianship to his disc jockey jobs as well.  He is also still teaching guitar at Mozingo.  John sold and traded his two 1994 vehicles for a new-to-him 2007 Kia Sedona which he absolutely loves, and the kids enjoyed the built-in DVD player on our trip to the east coast.  Another highlight to his year was when, during a break while on tour in Wisconsin, he got the chance to kayak in Sturgeon Bay in Door County.

TERE – In the picture she is enjoying two of her favorite things:  Coffee and the beach.  She is still writing for online sites, some of which she provides ghostwriting for so she cannot share the website names.  Her most recent claim to fame is writing for the Food & Drink column on the St. Louis CBS Local site.  She still homeschools the three children, adding our full-time first grader this year.  Of course, she is still attempting to sell the remaining contents of our basement and John’s childhood toys on eBay.  She continues to hope it begins to make a dent in the clutter, but it never seems to happen.

G-Man – He is on the verge of teenager-hood, but is still hanging on at the age of 12 and is in the 7^th grade.  His latest talent has become fixing Xbox 360s.  He is John’s main technical support crew and works to load music onto John’s laptop and keep up with other technical aspects of his dad’s musical career.  When he is not busy animating his own hand-drawn cartoons or working on learning programming languages, he is very funny and quick witted which makes us laugh.  He is also enjoying gymnastics this year and has successfully made it to the top of the YMCA rock wall during climbing classes.

J-Daddy's Girl – She is 10 (if you ask her she will say she is almost 11)…going on 37 we believe!  She enjoys keeping her room neat and is a big help around the house.  She loves to sit in bed in the evening and read and still loves horses and lambs.  She is enjoying the 5^th grade this year and loves school.  We finally found a new dance studio we’re happy with that is providing new opportunities for her after her dance teacher, which this girl has known since she was a little two year old dancer in this teacher’s class, resigned during the summer.  This was a hard emotional journey for her and for mom.  She, thankfully, also likes to make us laugh and is an expert at making hilariously funny face expressions and doing really good impersonations of funny voices.  She is also enjoying gymnastics this year and can still make sideway splits look as if they are as easy as breathing.

E-Baby – (E stands for elephant-lover) She is newly-turned 6 years old and is loving the 1^st grade.  She celebrated her birthday at the new American Girl Doll store in Chesterfield/St. Louis after visiting the local zoo’s new baby elephant, whom she is a zoo parent to, a couple days before.  Losing teeth is her latest endeavor.  She’s singing “All I want for 

Christmas is my two front teeth” and looked like a Jack-O-Lantern after losing two bottom teeth and then one top front tooth on Halloween.  She continues to love elephants, though our goal has shifted from trying to collect and rescue all of the elephants in the world to taking pictures of every elephant we find.  And, believe me there are tons (pun intended) of toy elephants everywhere we look.  She was in pure delight at Disney World where she rode the Dumbo ride several times.  She is full of energy and often runs through the house skipping and singing or tumbling or dancing – so long as she’s moving, drawing, hugging a toy elephant or entertaining us, she’s a happy girl.  She is starting to warm up to the new dance studio slowly and loves gymnastics as well.

Thanks for sharing the highlights of our year!  We hope this letter finds you happy and healthy and filled with the peace that only comes from a Savior that was born, crucified for our sins and rose to give life to everyone who believes.

May God bless you this Christmas season!

          The Scotts –