Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas everyone! This has been quite the year for the Kruse Family. As you can see, Ava and Katrina are growing up. At times, it seems too fast. Ava is 4 ½ going on 13. She is very creative and outgoing. She loves to sing, dance, draw, paint, and dress up like a princess. She is in preschool and loves her classmates and teachers. She has a great sense of humor and cracks up the whole family. She is in primary now and enjoys sharing all that she learns in church. She has been known to tell strangers what Jesus said not to do. Thankfully she is too cute to offend people.
      Katrina is our little fire ball. She has more personality than her little body can handle. She is 18 months old, and just started nursery at church. She is a social butterfly like her sister. She is not as delicate though. She loves to wrestle. She has been known to take toys from 3 year old boys, and keep them. She knows what she wants, and communicates very well for her age. She is silly, and expressive. She loves to play with her sister. She is more of a momma’s girl than Ava, but has been known to cry in our doorway when Daddy leaves for school. The past two years have been a sacrifice for all of us, but Katrina (Kat) has kept us laughing. She does a great “stink eye”.
       Shauna has been busy keeping up with the two girls. She has also continued to be active in the Tepper Partners club, Relief Society, local mother’s club, and volunteering in the community. This year she decided to do a team for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Societies Light the Night walk and fundraiser. With the help of a current Hodgkin's Lymphoma patient named Danielle, her team was able to raise $3000 to benefit patients with these types of Cancer. Shauna remains in remission, and considers herself “cured”. The walk was a great way of giving back to those currently in treatment. Shauna continues to run and participates in races when possible. She has used her time at home to learn to make everything under the sun by hand. She is quickly becoming the craft queen. She has enjoyed all that Pittsburgh has to offer. The rich culture, and city feel has been a unique experience. They enjoy being able to walk to the library, parks, church, gym and grocery stores.
      Daniel finished his first year of  Business School at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business with flying colors. He was chosen as one of 10 MBA students in the nation to recieve the William G. McGowan Fellowship. The Fellowship was awarded to students that have shown academic excellence, leadership, and community involvment. For his summer internship, Daniel brought the family to Minneapolis, Mn in order to complete a summer internship in marketing with Medtronic’s Neuromodulation Division. As with the all of the other locations that we have lived in over the past six years, we found some wonderful things about the area, built wonderful memories and truly enjoyed the experience. Shauna and the kids enjoyed a break from our hundred year old apartment as we lived on the thirty second floor of our summer vacation home in downtown Minneapolis. In fact, we had close to a dozen visits from family and friends over the course of the summer so others could also enjoy the benefits of the vacation spot and a less demanding schedule for Dan. We enjoyed visits from Dan’s brother John and his family, and Shauna’s brother Mike and his family. After the summer concluded, the Kruse family returned to the home front in Pittsburgh and Dan began his final year of grad school. After graduating he will began full-time work with Eaton Corporation in a Leadership rotation program. We will find out his location in April.
      We have gotten good at moving, and enjoy the change of scenery. Like previous years we have done a lot of traveling. We visited Oshkosh Wisconsin, Cleveland Ohio, Washington D.C, and Lusby/Baltimore Maryland as a family. Dan traveled frequently this year for interviews and visited Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and LA. Some of these trips included wonderful visits with family, such as Dan's visit to Santa Barbara to visit his sister Jennifer Hanrahan and her family. Our visit to Lusby Maryland was to see Shauna’s sister Colleen and her family while they celebrated the baptism of her niece.  Dan had the honor to perform the baptism. The highlight of our travels was a surprise cruise to Bermuda. Dan set up what was supposed to be an overnight date to Baltimore . After a wonderful lunch at a fish house in the Baltimore harbor, Dan gave Shauna an envelope with her passport and tickets for a 5 night cruise to Bermuda leaving just hours later from that port. She was totally shocked. It was a wonderful trip. Bermuda was breathtaking. The Royal Caribbean cruise ship was unbelievable. The cruise left them feeling very spoiled. Since then Dan has been worshiped by Shauna’s female friends and hated by just about every married man he knows. Needless to say, this has been a wonderful year for our family. We have been blessed so much. We are excited for what the future holds. Merry Christmas and remember He whose birth we celebrate during this time of year, even Jesus Christ.  Without Him, our family would not enjoy the peace and joy that we feel in our lives.