Koster Photo Album

	Christmas 1998 The Koster Christmas Letter Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas! We pray this letter finds you well.
1998 has been a good year for us. In a sense it has been mostly more of the same, yet the slow changes in our lives have surprised us in their depth. God has blessed us richly. Our kids continue to amaze us, our friends visit and delight us, and we have pursued a few of our own adventures.
	Last Christmas, Samantha Joy was just a newborn, but she has grown fast. Not only does she now walk and talk, she sleeps in her own room. And so, after eight years in our house, we've finally filled it without additional help from a border. We gave up our upstairs guestroom, but Deb enjoys having a bathroom to herself. And we still have the downstairs room for guests, so we expect you all to stop by. Filling our house, combined with our minivan and the constant propaganda from the PTA, have fully convinced us we're now thitysomethings.
Nathan is now 4 and attends preschool. He's a handsome and strong boy, and has charmed his teachers into letting him care for Wiggers, the school guinea pig, over this Xmas break. He's struggled a bit with colds and asthma this year, but his second minor ear surgery has helped.
	Jessica is 7 and in 2^nd Grade. She loves school and her schoolmates, and has earned her first set of eyeglasses. She played YMCA softball and soccer this year, and is looking forward to trying dance class next spring.
Most our adventures this year were on our tandem bike. Last spring, we found and purchased a used tandem over the internet from fellow bikers in Atlanta. We've become a neighborhood spectacle by attaching both an extend-a-bike and kid trailer, which then has seats for all of us. All five family-members in one long bicycle bus draws constant stares and smiles.
	In July, we took our tandem to Iowa for RAGBRAI with Team Flying Monkeys. (We left the kids in Michigan to enjoy time with grandparents.) We rode just under 400 miles in a week, and had some great times with old friends from around the country. You can read all about it at www.monkeys.org. Our most recent hobby has been a bit of Swing dance. We've taken a few lessons with friends, and have found it a marvelous way to exercise together. It's much more fun than the treadmill. The music is outstanding too.
On the employment front, we're both still enjoying our jobs, with possible developments on the horizon. The merger of Butterworth and Blodgett Hospitals has made for interesting possibilities for RNs like Deb (they're talking union!). At Calvin, one of two $10M gifts will be used for a new Communications building, which may or may not relocate parts of Audio-Visual. Meanwhile, the kids enjoyed their halloween clown careers.
	One of our greatest joys has been great company throughout the year. Last Christmas we helped some Bosnian friends settle in to life in Grand Rapids. In March, Mari & Mayumi, Japanese exchange students from Christian High, stayed with us for ten days and tried to teach us how to use chopsticks. This summer, Paula-Anne helped us as a live-in nanny for a few weeks while she was job hunting in GR. We attended a wonderful marriage retreat with Robin & Kari Luymes, which was a celebration of our 11^th anniversary (that's 14 years together if you include dating!). And Johnny, Matt, Stefan, and others have all come by for visits throughout the year. We hope you all will come back and visit again.
Merry Christmas and have a blessed new year!

	Steven, Deb, Jessica, Nathan, and Samantha.

Christmas 1998

The Koster Christmas Letter