This is your 2018 holiday card! Cheers!

Happy Holidays!

The Laniel family embraced places of Light and Hope this year and we are so grateful for you to share in a few of these through this little holiday card blog post. 

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The Light

To me, Light is the unexplainable miracles that show us that life is bigger than what we see. It is the moments of joy that seem disguised at first. Light is that knowing that we are not alone and that
 life is good. 

Your kids are Light to us. It is becoming redundant, I know, but we sure love all the kids in our lives. Choosing not to have kids does not mean that we don't love kids. We do. Very much! And we are so grateful for the ways that our friends and families invite us into their lives so we can be Aunt Kari and Uncle Brian. We cherish these moments so very much and our lives are richer because of it! 

{New Year's resolution: Get more pictures of all the kids in our lives!}

The CABIN! will always be a place of Light for us. We are grateful for the many memories that get created there year after year. 

We celebrated 10 years of marriage this year--whoop! We didn't do too much outside of eating at a delicious restaurant in our neighborhood, but we did upgrade my wedding band! It's a family "tradition" to upgrade rings on the 10-year marker of marriage...
I'm not going to say no to tradition, right?

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The Hope

To me, Hope is tangible optimism. We look for something good--usually in a difficult situation--and when we experience it, we know it's Hope.

Our family experienced the loss of some very special and important people. Two of my cousins died in June and our family is devasted. Both of them embodied the idea of loyalty and they displayed a sense of generosity that truly can't be captured in words. Because of these incredible souls, I have found myself offering a helping hand where I can and doing it without the pretense of needing something in return. This is how they both lived their lives and it helps me see Hope.

We felt hopeless when we knew we had to say goodbye to our dear family member, Birney. We are truly heartbroken. This loss feels oceanic. We talk about him every day because there are a million little things to be remembered.

We are all trying to live in this "new normal" of life without Birney. We have tried to help Baxter cope by having him see Grandpa and Grandma a bit more--he loves that!

We know that our family will never quite be the same but we also know that Birney will continue to save us--always. We are so grateful for the outpouring of love and support from so many people during this sad time. It has reached the depths of our souls and to us, this is Hope.
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We see Light and Hope in the little things that make us happy. Things like Trader Joe's or sparkly iPhone cases. We see it in those days that we really like our jobs and know we are being our best selves. We see it in our friendships with you and we know that this brings us strength. 

We hope that 2018 had places of Light and Hope you can reflect on and that 2019 is one of your best years yet! Cheers!