Happy New Year, 2012!

One resolution I have made,

and try always to keep:

To rise above the little things.

~John Burroughs

Hello Family and Friends,

Greetings to you from San Diego on this last day of 2011!

Congratulations to Chenda Shepard whose birthday is tomorrow, New Year's Day! She and husband Nathan with their children Preslea and Logan live in Alameda, California. Chenda and family have been in San Diego all this past week enjoying this week after Christmas. The first picture shows Chenda and Nathan when they visited the Grand Canyon back in November.

Looking Ahead. With the new year 2012 beginning tomorrow I am thinking about several things related to family.

Babies! I think about the excitement already surrounding the new babies that will be born this year in our family. Chenda and Nathan are expecting a new baby this coming July to make 3 babies in 3 years. Jeremy and Desiree Ortiz (Kim Clark's son and daughter-in-law) of Blue Springs, Missouri are expecting twins this coming June. Are there any others expecting? Congratulations to those families.

Our favorite nonagenarian. At the other end of the spectrum, I think about the senior member of our family, Elmer Shepard of Norman, Oklahoma, who will turn 94 in May and who is in the sunset years of his life. I am grateful for his son Dane and family who are caring for him. The second picture shows Elmer and Dane in a recent picture.

Also as 2012 begins, I think about the fact that it has been four years since I began writing this genealogical blog. It was the last week of December, 2007 that I first began writing about our family. My original intent was to write for about 6 months, until the Family Reunion in the summer of 2008. But I soon discovered that there is much more to be said about this wonderful, crazy, diverse family of ours. And so the stories and pictures continue, and will for God only knows how long.

And finally, I think about 2012 being the 70th anniversary year of my Gower grandparent's move from Oklahoma to San Diego. They followed my Shepard grandparents by just 2 years in a move that was strikingly similar, not least of all because it was the final family move they made. I look forward to several opportunities to comment on this anniversary as we move through 2012. The third picture shows my grandparents, Leroy and Nola Shannon Gower, in 1971.

For now, may 2012 be a very prosperous and joyful year for each of you!

- - -

Steve