I had high hopes of having so many cool links here. I started on December 1, and now it is mid-December,
and I'm still working on this! I still hope to add MORE links and cool stuff, but you know how life can be!
Dear Friends and Family, |
December, 2006 |
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Merry Christmas & Wishes for a Wonderful 2007! 2003: a year of dreams. 2004: a year of goals. 2005: a year of reflection. God willing, 2007 will be a year of change. |
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Greetings! We missed a year, but we were still thinking about all of you! We’ve continued pursuing our dreams and goals, as we discussed in 2003/2004. Still, it is amazing how quickly time passes – two years in the blink of an eye. During these last two years, we’ve been blessed with the time and freedom to find what is truly meaningful in our lives. We found we kept coming back to community – to friends, to family, to our pets, and to all those we meet as well as to those we have not yet met. It is about our interaction with others that determines the richness of our lives. One way we’ve tried to interact: we have now spent almost four years establishing a publishing company. We called ourselves Second Star Creations because we wanted to show the concept of Never land — that ephemeral realm where you never have to grow up — where you can stay youthful and continue to play. We’ve decided that ‘laughter’ and ‘play’ is very important. In many ways, we believe we have succeeded. Our first children’s book, The Blacksmith’s Gift, won a coveted Benjamin Franklin Award as the best independently published juvenile/young adult fiction of the year! We continued writing Christmas stories, and An Orphan’s Promise has just been released. We still plan one more release in our Santa Claus stories. We see these stories as part of our legacy – a gift to the children of the world, many of whom we ‘haven’t met’; these are the stories we wanted to read to our own children, had we had them. Fulfilling this dream has taken a lot of time and effort – we have been very busy! We have tried to take time to reflect, but at the same time, we realize that we have to decide where we really are in our lives – publishing has been a fulfillment of a dream, it is not a living. We’ve spent the last two years deciding how to transition from what we were before to what we can become. So, reflection… what have we done in the last two years? As has been true for so long, travel has been a major factor within our lives – and the last two years has indeed had much travel, some desired, some necessary. The desired! Costa Rica, Yellowstone National Park, France, Norway! Travel is such a joy! In April, 2005, Jan celebrated her 50th birthday by swinging on zip lines strung through very tall trees (like Tarzan!) in the wilds of Costa Rica. We scuba dived the Pacific, saw active volcanoes, and traversed forests on suspended bridges in the wilds of Latin America. In May, 2006, we were in Yellowstone National Park, watching Old Faithful in the snow (yes, in May!), seeing the bears, deer and the antelope play, and marveling at both the Grand Tetons and the flatness of other parts of Wyoming. In August, 2006, we had the supreme pleasure of a week in a farmhouse in the Provence region of France, doing nothing more than going to the market in the morning, and then spending the rest of the day relaxing while preparing a marvelous dinner, then watching the moon rise. We followed our France trip with our first trip to Norway. We’re writing books about Norway – so this seemed a natural. We saw Bergen, took a boat trip on the fjords, saw glaciers, and ended in Oslo – with remembrances of Vikings and Norwegian history. I will never forget the wind in my face as the sun broke through the clouds of the Norwegian fjords. Of course, some travel is necessary – we’ve traveled more than we’ve been home over the last two years. Dan’s father developed a neurological condition where he became unable to move – he went from shuffling, to a wheelchair, to being bedridden. We took monthly trips to Florida to try to help as much as we could, but time waits for no one… Dan lost his father October 3, 2006. And now, transition – we have pursued our legacy, and we will see it to fruition. But publishing a children’s book is not a way to make money unless you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. Change will come next year, in part because Dan will be seeking a new I/T position in 2007; frugal savings and spending only go so far, even when dreams are fulfilled. Also, we realize we are burdened with the detritus of life – there are so many things we need to unburden ourselves from – we are calling it ‘morphing’ – trying to emerge from a chrysalis and to be the butterflies God created us to be. So, we look to 2007 as a year of change. Change to what we do not know – that we leave to God. We end 2006 looking to the meaning of ‘Christ’s day’ – a promise of salvation, a promise of renewal, and a promise of hope. We wish you the fulfillment of all of your promises in life.
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God bless you. |
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Dan T. Davis phone: (913) 908-4734 |
email: dan@woodsrest.com Web pages www.woodsrest.com |
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