2011 Review

Dear Friends and Family,

The first edition of the Wright Family Christmas card is coming to you electronically for a couple of reasons. One - Christmas snuck up on Katy very quickly. As a teacher she feels like Thanksgiving and Christmas happen two weekends in a row. Two - Katy wasn't up for the third massive mailing of 2011. (The first massive mailing was wedding invitations and the second was thank you cards after the wedding.) We hope you enjoy our first family Christmas greeting as we briefly recount the multitude of blessings God gave us this past year month-by-month.

January - Katy kicks off the second semester of her fourth year of teaching with a student teacher who did a great job and allowed Katy to work on some projects around the Ag department.

February - Kelly asks Katy's dad for her hand in marriage; we were engaged soon after on February 11! The madness of wedding planning ensued.

March - Katy's FFA Dairy Judging team named State Champs. We also headed to Florida for the wedding of Brian and Mindy Estevez - the trip was a nice time for Kelly to meet some of Katy's Florida "family."

April - A lamb from our August 2010 sale was selected as the Grand Champion Lamb at La Paz County Fair in western Arizona! Wedding plans continued although most big decisions had been made. Kelly continued working hard on handmade contributions for the wedding including wood centerpieces, wagons for gifts, the arch and unity candle. He was a busy man!!

May - We married on May 28 at the Groseta Ranch Headquarters in Cottonwood. We honeymooned in Winter Park, Colorado where we stayed in the cabin of our friend's, Jake and Rebecca Mutz. We both are so grateful to the many family and friends who made our wedding day a memorable event - from helping run errands, to baking homemade desserts for the dessert buffet or making decorations.

June - This was a big month for Kelly - he turned 40 and celebrated 15 years with the City of Chandler as a firefighter! Kelly enjoys his job and the challlenges he works to overcome with the "C shift" guys which includes firefighting, technical rescue and HAZMAT calls. Brandy also competed in the Arizona Junior Beef Ambassador Contest and placed first; to say the least we were both very proud!

July - Kelly started feeding spent brewer's grain to our sheep (the leftover grain after brewing beer) - he was able to work a deal with the brewer at the Tempe branch of Gordon Biersch Brewery. We are excited about this opportunity because it will help cut our feed costs down quite a bit since we can now feed less hay and we get the grain for free. Katy was also awarded the Outstanding Young Member award for the Arizona Agricultural Teacher's Association at their annual summer meeting in Tucson. Brandy also moved back to Florida this month to live with her mom; we both miss her but pray for her often and look forward to her next visit.

August - Katy started her fifth year as the Buckeye Ag Teacher and FFA advisor with a new teaching partner that has brought far less stress into her professional life. We also found out that Katy was pregnant; "morning" sickness ensued for the next 16 weeks. (It was more like all day sickness!) Kelly had his annual Wright Club Lamb Sale on the third weekend of this month and we sold over 30 lambs to 4-H and FFA members from across Arizona. Katy's sister, Anna, was our auctioneer and she did a great job!

September - We took 10 of our best ewes to west Texas to be bred. We are both hopeful about the prospect of what will come from this - we are already anticipating March 2012 when these ewes lamb out.

October - We finally used some of the gift money from our wedding to purchase unfinished hardwood floors for the three bedrooms in our house; this was going to be Kelly's project while Katy was out of town for a week. Katy traveled with 25 students to Indianapolis for the National FFA Convention where she also had two teams competing in National contests: Marketing Plan (21st out of 42 teams) and Dairy Judging (22nd out of 44 teams). The month ended well with one of the lambs we sold being selected as the Grand Champion Lamb at the Arizona State Fair!

November - We returned to the farm an hour south of Lubbock to retrieve our ewes - they were in good condition. Still looking forward to early lambing both for these 10 ewes and the other ewes we bred for early lambs to our youngest ram, Carrera. We also picked up our colt, Dib, in Amarillo on the return trip. Kelly did an awesome job finishing the hardwood floors in the guest bedroom and nursery. He worked his tail off to finish the proejct in the nick of time - we hosted Thanksgiving for both sides of our families! We had our first ultrasound the day before Thanksgiving and found out that we are having a boy!

December - Katy had the FFA State Champion Novice Prepared Speaker at the Midwinter contest early this month. Kelly also earned the "Best Husband of the Year" award for all his hard work in helping decorate the house for Christmas which included painting the living room and dining room as well as hanging lights inside and outside of the house! We celebrated Christmas in Cottonwood and are looking forward to the last few days of the year.

We pray 2011 was full of blessings for your family too! We praise God for bringing us together and giving us the gift of a healthy, growing baby thus far in Katy's pregnancy. We look forward to seeing what God has in store for the Wright's in 2012 - check back for updates!

Much love,
Kelly and Katy