Ortega Family
Christmas Letter 2016
2016 – Also known as the year our life savings went to
orthodontic appts. and an outrageously expensive healthcare plan. We apologize for the delay in delivery this
year. We were waiting on a Christmas
miracle for the Baylor football team!! You
all know we are football fans in this house and until this past week we were
certainly not going to lead in with anything BU football related.
HOWEVER, 2016 will now also go down as the year Baylor made
the best decision EVER to hire Coach Matt Rhule. The man Baylor Nation has been praying for to
bring our football team back from the depths of extinction, whom has the #3
Defense in the country and just hired the Texas High School Football Coaches
Association PRESIDENT! BOOM, insert fist
pump! When asked “Why Baylor?” His response, “We feel called to be here. It
is a World Class University and quite frankly, it gives me the opportunity to
Coach Football and outwardly embrace my Faith!!!” As they say on the best show on TV This is Us, “Nothing bad ever happens
on Christmas Eve!” For sake of this
letter…we’ll consider it Christmas Eve for the Baylor Bears!! By the way…have you seen those basketball
rankings…yup, as of tonight, Baylor Women are ranked #3 in the COUNTRY and our
Men are ranked #4!!!! Sic ‘em’ Bears! We have a feeling we are just going to get
sic of winning!! (see what we did there?!?!?). :-)
Speaking of football…isn’t that trophy on the front of the
Christmas card sweet!?!? John ended his
Powder Puff coaching career going 3-0!!
The UND law school girls beat the med-school girls again for the 3rd
year under Coach Ortega. It was a nail
biter, due to John being in Boston the final week of practices. John now understands why his high school
coach threw up before every game.
We are excited to announce that John will be completing his LL.M. in Banking and Finance Law from
Boston University after finals next week!
YEAH!!! Yes, we all thought Law
School was supposed to be completed by now, but with Lisa’s encouragement, John
decided an LL.M. was in the cards to ensure future teaching opportunities at
the JD level, easier access to speaking engagements, etc.! Thanks to his 2015 spring semester connections,
we traveled to Doha, Qatar & Bali, Indonesia to witness dear friends
getting married in October. Don’t, do
not even ask what is next for the Ortega family. No, just don’t do it…but we will add that our
realtor, neighbors and friends have noticed we have entered year 4 in the great
state of North Dakota and are all chuckling under their breath saying, “We told
you, you would end up staying here!”
Apparently, once you enter year 5, your brain is so frozen over you
forget your original plan was to eventually leave. In all seriousness, there are parts of us
that are starting to turn. In fact,
leaving our home, neighborhood, friends, etc. just seems too overwhelming and
sad to think about. On that note…moving
on.
As the school year began this fall, the children went off to
2nd Grade and Kindergarten.
John took off for Boston University, traveling there weekly. And Lisa spent the first two days praying the
kids wouldn’t get salmonella poisoning due to the chicken bag leaking out all
over in the fridge. With budget cut backs
we started buying Wal-Mart brand Ziploc bags…DON’T. DO NOT!!!
It’s like Heinz ketchup or Charmin tissue paper…you just can’t buy the
“generic” brand!! Day three was spent
finally realizing she should sanitize the fridge and consider getting a tattoo. She is looking forward to crossing teaching
off her bucket list this spring. She has
always had a passion for motivating and guiding college students and will be
teaching Mgmt. 302, basically the intro to HR course at UND. No doubt the students are going to enjoy her
real-life examples of crazies from around the world in the oil patch! Speaking of the oil patch, her largest client
sold for $2.5B this fall. DHRA is extremely proud of Yates
Petroleum and having had the opportunity to work with their outstanding
leadership team prepping their HR organization.
The Children Updates:
Clark – Still known as the gentle giant and
helper to mom in daddy’s absence! Is a
7-year old in a 10- year old’s body. Won
the softball throw this summer at a track meet.
We had three fathers ask us if we were sure that he was in the correct
age division?!?! His response, “My dad’s
a lawyer…I can’t lie.” Yes, this one is
very matter of fact and a man of few words, but nails it every time he
speaks! Loves math and art, basketball,
spending time with Grandma making sugar cookies or zucchini bread, and has
learned a new skill, the life game of CHESS!
His intensity is just like his father’s.
He ordered the book, “How to beat my father at Chess.” It won’t be long now ha, and loves beating
the kids at school in 3-4 moves.
Currently wants to be a chess master, NBA and NFL player when he grows
up.
Kennedy – At this orthodontic outflow rate,
better have THE most gorgeous smile on the planet. Her father believes, like insurance, it is
all a scam. Is reading 5th
grade chapter books in one or two evenings.
Has found her mother’s love of CHEERLEADING, constantly practicing her
moves, jumps and stunts at home, so much so that her brothers now know the
counts and yell HIT every time she jumps!!
She joined the Red River Valley All-Stars team and per John, mom is
having a BLAST! ***Insert eye roll
here. Was told at conferences that she
needs to pay more attention to the teacher and listen. Hmmm…funny how mom’s voice is never heard
either. Her response, “Well mommmmm, the
other kids are wanting me to talk to them or I am just focused on what I am
doing…” Umkay… Currently wants to be a
singer when she grows up.
Giancarlo – Told Lisa this week at drop off,
“Mom, I’m not giving you a kiss either…I don’t have time for that!” Is also known for pulling up to Starbucks and
yelling, “We need an ALL AMERICANO!” Which
comes from hearing daddy order his daily caffeine intake of a TALL Americano. Seriously though, this boy constantly has the
family in stitches playing the baby of the family role even though he says he doesn’t
want us to laugh at him. Has been
telling us all lately that we are “tinnerrupting” him from speaking. But the thing is…he is ALWAYS talking. So much so, he now has a new nick name…”motor
mouth.” Had a blast watching daddy’s girls
at football practice and is now the first to jump in the car to pick up Kennedy
from cheer practice so he can see “the girls” at the gym! Yes, this one is all Grandpa Vilhauer!! Plans on being a football player and
investment banker when he grows up.
Even though lil G would never admit it…he looks up to his big
brother sooooo much. So much so that his
birthday party included all of Clark’s best buddies! It sure is fun watching the kids develop
their friendships, playing on the same teams and cheering each other on!! We pray they are best friends for LIFE! Moving into everyone’s favorite part of the
Christmas letter…the parental advice. However,
to begin the succession planning on the Ortega family Christmas letter…we are
handing this segment over to Kennedy this year.
She typed the first piece and Lisa added the (parenthesis).
1.
Read
to your children. (If this happens to us
4 nights out of 7 we are doing good…Oops!)
2. Make
healthy food for your children. (Lisa is
a freak about putting spinach and onions in everything, to clean out the
toxins. Spinach smoothies are a staple
around here!)
3. Spend
one on one time before bed. (This has
been hard, especially with John gone most evenings, but it seems to be the kids
favorite part of the day…especially Clark, who has a hard time getting a word
in with the other two always jib jabbing!)
4. Saying
“I love you” before bed. (:-))
5. Giving
hugs and kisses before bed. (:-))
Apparently, the bed time is very important!! Our final advice (you already know what is
coming here) DATE NIGHT!!! Thank goodness we have one tonight. With us both literally giving high fives and
tagging in/out at the airport some weeks, it is IMPERATIVE the Ortega’s get a
date night in. Y’all…those kids are not
going to be in your house forever. Once
they leave you are going to look up at your partner and wonder who the heck
they are. PLEASE make your spouse a priority.
We are always better parents when we have connected and had a date
night. At this point, the kids cheer
when they find out its date night. We
are grateful to have an awesome group of sitters (mainly UND students) who have
a great time with our kiddos!
In closing…we’ve had several friends recently lose
grandparents or parents, and have had dear friends move out of this sweet
community. As we celebrated our 20-year
HS reunions this summer (CRAZY!), and enter ages 40 and 39 respectively this
coming year in our own lives, we are truly understanding the importance of
faith, family (all 5 Vilhauer cousins above) and friends. We had to put our sweet dog Floppy down of 12
years in October, which was made even worse because he was the last ty we had
to our first child (his mother) Katy Ru. We are still not sure where this Leap of Faith
is taking us. Honestly, not even trying
to speculate on it at this point. But
rather, taking each day as it comes by loving on our children, going on date
night, hosting a bible study and cherishing every moment with those we love and
can LAUGH with. We
believe God has been trying to tell us something, to JUST BREATHE and stop the
craziness! We know he is working out
his plan, which is and will be so much better than we could have imagined,
ultimately combining our two worlds of Texas and the Dakotas.
May this next year bring you lower health insurance premiums,
fewer blizzards, national championships, great Tex Mex, oil over $75 a barrel, and
that great capitalist feeling of being sick of winning!! Let’s ALL do what we can to Make America
Great Again.
Lots of Love from the
Crazies! John, Lisa, Clark, Kennedy and
Giancarlo
No comments:
Post a Comment