{happy holidays} from the Carlsons

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Happy Holidays!

We hope you are enjoying the season and able to find some moments to rest and create memories within the busyness of it all! We know your time is valuable, so we tried to keep our year-in-review short:

This year, both Kevin and Tracy stayed employed (yay!) at the same companies, in the same roles, and continue to enjoy our jobs and colleagues. While we value the work we are able to do, our #1 goal is to balance this with our family, friends, and volunteering.

Speaking of family, Chase and Kiefer are full throttle into allthesports and we couldn’t be enjoying it more. While they played baseball, soccer, basketball, and tennis - flag football has their hearts. Kevin loves coaching whenever possible, and was even able to QB with both Carlson boys on the same team...and that team won the JFL Indoor 8 & Under Championship! Tracy has been key to cheering and recording videos...though misses a play or two when "building team camaraderie" (ie. chatting on the sidelines).

One of the coolest moments this year happened by pure chance. Kevin took the boys to our nearby field to hit some baseballs, when a man strolled by and asked to film them practicing for his production company. Then he put together this really cool footage*.

No one has yet to approach Tracy for filming opportunities with her children. She’s totally fine with it.  It doesn’t make her jealous at all. At all.

This year we took several hikes in Arizona, Illinois (that's right, IL has hiking!), and Tennessee.  While we love hiking, we haven't experienced the same joy with earning Junior Ranger badges. After laboring long and hard for badges at Starved Rock State Park and The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we *may* have told the kids that their new Jr. Ranger badges cover all parks. Forever. Please play along with us and do not tell them otherwise.

The boys are enjoying school, with 2019 being their favorite year due to the Chicago Teachers Union strike. For 11 days, the boys lived their best lives -- meeting up with friends, playing sports all day, and not spending a moment on homework.

And since school is back in session, so is homework, so we better run to finish up our math sheets!

Have a wonderful holiday, we hope to hear from you soon!

Best,
Kevin, Tracy, Chase (9 years old), and Kiefer (7 years old)

*video was filmed and edited by Kyle Prater of Chasing Greatness Productions / Instagram: @k2p21 & @c_g_prod / chasinggreatnessproductions.com

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