Merry Christmas! A year in review for the Dale Family, 2024.
Christian and Eric cut their long locks.
pursing a PhD in Material Science Engineering. They got a cat, Motherboard. Laura finished her cross-stitch that has been a work in progress for 15 years. Daniel has enthusiastically accepted Charles into the family! And Eric has enthusiastically accepted Motherboard!
Christian graduated from Wake Tech & is a junior at UNC Chapel Hill. He was so excited he took Organic Chemistry 2 as a summer course! He is majoring in Biology & Psychology, with a minor in Neuroscience. He lives near campus in a townhouse. He works when he can as a model for Siemen's.
Elder Samuel Matheson Dale ‘Mat’ is still serving a mission in St. George, Utah. He celebrated his 21st birthday this year. His emails are amazing and we are so proud of him! We get to talk to him once a week!
Eric graduated from High School! He is waiting for his braces to be removed so he can submit his mission papers. He is filling his time with playing musical instruments and working 2 jobs, GameStop and also modeling for Siemens. He had the privilege of going to Papa Sam’s ranch to see the total Eclipse. Eric also was a first time voter this year. With the older 3 kids out of the house, we have depended on Eric for his hard work on the farm!
Daniel turned 8 and was baptized. He traveled a lot this year with his family: Mexico, Virginia, Washington D.C., the Outer Banks, & Oregon. He started piano lessons and joined the chess club.
We also said goodbye to Papa’s ranch. And lots of Durham Bulls baseball!
Brian turned 50!!! We went to Mexico to celebrate all of us: Eric graduating, Christian graduating, Daniel’s Baptism, Barbara and Brian’s 25th wedding anniversary, Brian’s 50th birthday. It was a great trip and we loved everything about it. We went to La Playa del Carmen to tour the Mayan Temple ruins.
Barbara told Brian it was time for him to fulfil his dream of woodworking and put him to work hand carving Laura’s wedding bench. He loved it and did such a good job that we got him a CNC router and has many more projects Barbara has said it is time he should do.
Brian has taken a shine to Beekeeping. He has worked really hard to keep the bees alive and thriving. After 7 years Brian finally got an office in the house after Christian moved out. When Eric moves Barbara will get hers. We also finally got rid of the carpet on the stairs. They are not a hazard anymore.
Barbara has been crocheting and crocheting some more! I feel like I am becoming more expert because I can change patterns and have even come up with some patterns of my own. One difficult thing was settling on a new house color. We couldn’t pick just one so we went with 2 and love it.
Lori came to NC to help with Laura’s wedding. Then she turned around and brought her whole family to tour the East Coast and visited with our Shappell cousins. It was a whirlwind and a delight. After a beautiful Celebration of Life for Kathi, we did a Sister’s + 1 in Oregon.
Our neighbors bought Peacocks and our male decided to invite them to live with us, so now we have 2 more peacocks in addition to our peacocks hatching their own!
From the Dale family to you, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. May you feel the Savior's love and come to know Him more!
