Zito Family Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all our family & friends,

Wow, what a year 2010 has been for the Zito Family! It has been a year of adventures, projects, challenges, trials, miracles & many many countless blessings. We have so much to be grateful for. The Lord has taken care of us. As I reflect on on this past year I am truly grateful for the good job Leonard has that provides for our family.

LEONARD is still employed with Netapp and works closely with Go Daddy. Leonard has enjoyed a few hiking, rock climbing and backpacking adventures this year. To read more about them check out his blog HERE   but here are a few pics of some highlights:

Leonard started the Crossfit program at Leiftime Fitness back in feb. and has lost 25 lbs and is addicted.  Crossfit combines Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics & EXTREME cardio. I call it a pysco masochist kinda of a work out… I know, I tried it for 2 months this summer. Really, though it is a really good workout for sure and the strength you can build is AWESOME!!!   Burpee Wars was a killer… 3100 burpees in 3 weeks. Good times!

As far as Church life, this summer Leonard was called to serve in the High Priest group. He is officially “OLD” ;) I love my old man! LOL! He is specializing in learning family history and helping others in our ward find their long lost relatives. It has been awesome watching him learn and grow in excitement in this great work. He as an AMAZING teacher too… his mom is a wiz at family history and they have enjoyed talking on the phone doing family history together. 

Leonard was lucky enough to get an iPad this summer and his life has been greatly improved having this nifty tool. Just ask him! If you let him tell you all about it, I guarantee you will be on your way to the Apple store to get your very own :) He has those super powers!  

One of his favorite memories this past year was taking me to Show Low, AZ for a weekend getaway. This is where we fell in love 14.5 years ago and it was such a nice weekend… we even took our bikes out for a spin! Ahh such fun :)

As for me… LOREE… this year has had its ups and downs. I started off 2010 having major surgery that forever changed me and our family. I had to have a hysterectomy. It was tough, but I survived and with a smile on my face too :)after recovery, I got brave and joined the Masters swim team. It has been so AWESOME learning to be a better swimmer and I have the best swim coaches ever. I even competed in my first swim meet ever this summer and even placed 1^st ;) it was pretty cool. I trained and completed an All Women Triathlon… SHE ROX! It was so cool!  I got a new road bike, which I love, love love!  

Leonard & I did the MS Bay to Bay 150 mile bike ride in California back in October. It was quite the challenge on a new bike and it rained the entire time. I survived but got injured on the ride and have not been able to ride or swim since. It has been an emotional, physical, mental journey for me these past 2 months. I have not even blogged about it. It has added to the adventures of trials to 2010 for me. I will blog details soon about this ride so stay tuned. PS… I am getting better and plan to hit the pool and bike this week! So hooray for me:)

In other news… I have loved teaching my AWESOME primary class at church this year. I have such a great bunch of kids and I will be sad not to be their teacher next year. 

Ohhh, and this past summer I also LOVED the Show Low Weekend Getaway with my Lenny!

My Leonard is so good to me too! He surprised me by flying me up to SLC to visit my good friend Lisa. We had an awesome time together shopping, browsing, talking, laughing and running. She took me to Tai Pan Trading, the Best home décor store in Utah! We shopped til we dropped :) I can’t wait to do it next summer too !  When I returned home,  I was excited to start some home improvements.  My Favorite project of the year was my kitchen makeover.

Our family has enjoyed several Fun adventures this year. The Annual Zito Family Road Trip to Wyoming and Montana always leaves us with great memories. We LOVE Love LOVED staying at the GRIZMO cabin in Montana~ But my favorite memory was taking the family to DISNEYLAND… the happiest place on earth! Ahhh the memories :)

Kaitlyn

This gorgeous gal of ours just turned 12 back in November. She is happy to be graduated from Primary and has joined the YW program. She loves it and has been excitedly been working on her personal progress goals. This girl has already accomplished 6 goals…. She’s fast! :)

 Kaitlyn is in 6^th grade and is enjoying her FINAL year in elementary school! The students in 6^th grade get the opportunity to take part  of KDPE… a broadcasting program where they get  to be news anchors and work the cameras to present the school announcements for all the classrooms each week. She has loved her life in the lime light ;) 

She is still playing her Cello Beautifully and her talent in music continues to thrive. She is a GREAT helper to me.  She is earning some good money babysitting for me and others. She is a joy to have around. We love our Kaitlyn. 

Her favorite memory of 2010 is our Wyoming  Road trip and seeing her Zito family. She especially loved driving the jet ski on the lake herself and when Uncle Johnathan let her practice driving the truck! oh and of course DISNEYLAND ;) Good times for our little TWEENAGER ;)

Carly

This Beautiful gal of ours is 9 years old and is doing an AWESOME job in 4^th grade. She is working hard and memorizing her math facts and we couldn’t be prouder! Carly is such a creative girl and draws the best pictures too! She gives the BEST hugs and when she gets giggling it is very contagious! We love Carly! She is taking piano lessons and is sounding great. 

She just started taking Power Tap Clogging lessons. She is LOVING it and taps her feet everywhere she goes. She is learning a cool solo piece right now that she will get to perform at a dance recital too. If Carly had it her way she would take every dance class offered and gymnastics and synchro swimming too! She loves listening to music REALLY LOUD!!! and she has got  some rhythm that girl :) 

Her favorite memory of 2010 is  getting blue ribbons this past summer at SWIM Team! Both girls enjoyed another fun summer swimming their little arms off! Working hard and swimming fast! Carly got her ears pierced this year! She was so brave and her earrings are so cute and sparkly! 

Carly also loved DISNEYLAND & California Adventures…. The rollercoaster, California Screaming is her new favorite! If only there were more time in the day… girl I know :) ooooh, and SPLASH MOUNTAIN oh how we loved the thrills and spills! Our happy Carly had a great 2010

Blake

This handsome boy of ours is 4.5 years old and loves being in Miss Katie’s Preschool again this year. He has really grown by leaps and bounds the past month. He is now writing his name like a champ and is drawing awesome pictures… houses, trains, tracks, and people all with his left hand too!  

He is an early bird for sure. He is up every day between 5 am – 6am building houses and factories with his blocks and fills the floor with train tracks. It does not matter if we put him to bed at midnight; he is awake at the crack of dawn… so Blake gets an early bedtime each night. :) 

A highlight for Blake was having his 4^th  B-day party at the Train Park in Scottsdale. He was in TRAIN heaven. He took swimming lessons this summer and swam his heart out my folk’s pool. 

He loved staying at the Grizmo cabin in Montana this summer and wanted to go back there to live every day! But I think since our recent trip to Disneyland… Blake’s first time, he asks to go back to Disneyland everyday! He loved it and the big rides were his favorites like Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad, & Space Mountain. He was crushed he was too short to ride California Screaming.  4 more inches buddy!

One of the most memorable moments of 2010 for Blake, besides the fun of Disney, was when our house almost went up in flame… To read more about it click HERE. you will need to scroll down in that post to get the scoop. Anyways, He wants to be a fireman when he grows up and talks about the FIRE almost daily! Phew, talk about Miracles! The Lord surely blessed us that day! 

We hope your 2010 has been wonderful and we look forward to another year of adventures! May you all have a happy and healthy New Year! We love you all :)

Love, The Zito Family