New Years Letter!!!

Here is our awesome new years letter ry always writes (it's actually usually our christmas letter, but he just finished it!) hope you enjoy it! our christmas / new years photo shoot was yesterday, so we'll post photos as soon as we receive them from adam. enjoy the letter!

Happy New Year From The Lows.
Let’s dispense with the formalities shall we?
1. Alyssa is a year older, still in Grad school to get her Master’s in Spiritual formation and soul care.
2. Ryan is a year older and heavier; still working at Biola as a Resident Director, and at his church as a worship director.
3. Emily is four, going to preschool, riding a bike, imagining she is princess Leia, and practically writing novels in her spare time…very creative, this one.
4. William is three and a quarter, has long floppy hair, talks in full sentences, rides a scooter and, yes, still remains to be potty trained. (-sigh-) Nobody ever told me about certain things like potty training. “Oh, it’s a little hard” they said, “But you just give your little nubbin time and you throw a little potty party for him, get him a DVD of a huge bear trying to make you believe they actually would go potty on a tiny toilet, do all these other strange things like talking to a doll and dropping prunes in their fake diapers and voilah: You have a potty trained child!” Hallelujah!!! The heavens open, trumpets sound in the deep! Unfortunately, William sees through all these cheap circus tricks. He simply does not care. We’ve tried to bribe him with Macdonald’s, Disneyland, viewing of Kung Fu Panda, a Diego Toy set; a weekend getaway to San Diego….Nothing man….The boy does not care and he is stubborn about not caring. He is stubborn about being stubborn about not caring….He is stubborn about being…Well you get the picture. It’s lame man! We’re throwing the world at this guy. We even got him a Dora toilet seat. I got him some obvious potty time reading like: Winnie the Pooh, Baby’s First Book On Football, And the ever popular: “Teaching Your Baby To Complete Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty.” (Borders, $12). Anyway, we are waiting anxiously for the day he decides to give this thing a go, Cuz, man I’m missing Big Macs.!

And now for something completely different….Two bone chilling tales; Yarns of terror and fright. A spooky good time, for those not of the faint of heart. HAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahha cough.

Ryan And Alyssa Meet The Abominably Terrifying Mexican Moth Of Terror…
So Alyssa and I celebrated ten year’s of marriage in October. We celebrated by going to Cabo San Lucas (without kids) to use a timeshare a friend of ours owns. It was incredible! So we settled in for our first night, and laid down to go to sleep. The lights turn off when ever so quietly, and suddenly, in the darkness of the room, a not so slight scratching noise emanates from behind our bed post. It seemed less than a yard away, a razor sharp claw, sliding it’s way precariously along the edge of the wall. The ominous scratching noise was followed by a whir of frenzied wings. Had a demon clawed its way through the gates of hell and placed itself beneath our bed waiting for two unsuspecting victims; and now unfurling its wicked wings ready to strike? Alyssa whispered and gulped: “What is that?” Wings flapped like a distant rattle of drums, once again in the shadowy depths. I gulped hard. Blood began to race. Were we facing a vampire bat? A large ill-tempered sea gull maybe? A pterodactyl with razor sharp teeth?
Scrape……Claw….Flutter of leathery wings with thorns on them? We decided to turn on a light that was behind the bed. In the darkness I reached towards the switch and thought twice, just what might we see? Mexico was a strange foreign land. I needed to be ready for a fight. As the blue light flooded behind our wooden filigreed headboard, it created a beautiful panoramic portrait of a lovely Mexican landscape, and there, smack in the middle over the “Pico De Orizaba”, was a large and sinister silhouette. Once light flooded in, the beast frenetically beat it’s powerful wings causing Alyssa and I to stumble back. My wife rushed to me, burying her head in my chest, terrified of course. “Oh love of my life….Whatever will we do? This beast confounds me, it frightens me to the very core. If I was not here with a strong man….well I might lose hope.”
I knew her fear. I felt it. But this beast would not devour us this night. We decided to pull the bed away from the wall and with a large glass container, I would attempt to imprison my enemy. As we pulled the bed away, the night visitor jumped from the bed frame onto one of the curtains that hung next to the bed causing it to sway ever so slightly; he was an agile beast. I cautiously approached. This would take all my cunning and skill. It had it’s large furry head turned away from me, this I considered as fortuitous, for now he could not freeze me with his laser beam eyes. With a swoosh, a flutter, a scream and a flurry of curtains, danger was captured and evil was thwarted.
Moments later Alyssa and I stared at the beast we had caught in a large glass vase. An enormous moth of terror. “Have you ever seen anything so vile?” I asked my bride. “Verily I say to you, It has been a long time since I have laid my eyes upon such a baneful creature” Alyssa responded. I inspected more closely. It had long cactus like legs protruding from a hairy body with a set of ugly wings like crushed brown velvet. On his head was a set of large black opaline eyes and a beard. As I looked at him he spoke: “ Hey man, you got a cigarrette?” Alyssa and I looked at each other.
I said: “Umm…no this is a non-smoking room”
“with a king bed” Alyssa interrupted.
“….So you see, it might ruin our deposit…you know” I explained.
The moth sighed and looked around: “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. Would you be a compadre and release me outside so I might find room 313?”
Right before the moth left us he turned and said: Thank you amigos. Remember: “Mexico Is For Lovers”
We never saw that moth again, but I must say, that night Alyssa and I saw a different side of Mexico. What an anniversary!
The Low’s And The Insidious Identity Snatching Doppelgangers. (doo-doo-doo)
It was a peaceful night when we received a phone call………
“Hey since when have you guys been models” our mysterious caller said. We were confused by this but they directed us to look at the newspaper. We opened it and found a Michael’s ad with a picture of us! We’ve never spoken to Michael’s! Never received a paycheck from them, but these people looked exactly like us; one little girl and one little boy; same features, nearly perfect body doubles. They must be DOPPELGANGERS!!! (cue evil music- Doo-Doo-Doo). Who were these people staring back at us with our own faces and eyes? What did they want? The man was even wearing the black long sleeve shirt I own. How dare he impersonate me like this! To say “we were intrigued” would be an understatement. We drove to Michael’s searching for answers. I wanted to stop these evil Doppelgangers (Doo-doo-doo).
We arrived at Michael’s but found no picture of them anywhere except on an ad they placed in their entry. I demanded to speak to management saying we had been ruthlessly and vilely impersonated. I wanted names, The Doppelgangers (doo-doo-doo) needed to pay! The cash register girl looked at the Ad then me, and said: “Hey Martha, look at this, they’re in our Ad. Wow I never met someone who was a model before! Would you sign my book?” She pulled out a tiny paperback novel with a man and women embracing while riding a white horse: titled “Til the waning moments of dawn”; and handed me a pen.
“You don’t understand, I’m not him, she’s not her, they’re not them” I said pointing at us.” We’ve had our identities stolen by these nefarious Doppelgangers!” (doo-doo-doo) The cash register lady looked at me with a quizzical expression. I sighed: “Who do I make the autograph out to?”
We returned home crushed and concerned. If they could steal our faces, what else could they take? We expected the worst but nothing happened….For a few weeks. Suddenly we received word the evil doppelgangers (doo-doo-doo) had struck again. This time the sinister life snatchers had shown up on a Costco website. We frantically searched the internet and found a picture of Emily and Will. There they were hugging and looking precious, but we knew better. Who would dare perpetuate this cruel ruse?
“A-ha they have made a tactical error” I exclaimed knowing the only way to discover a doppelganger (doo-doo-doo), is for them to do something inconsistent with the character of whom they sought to impersonate: “My children don’t hug!”.
“Yes they do dear”, Alyssa reminded me. Darnit, they have once again successfully completed their illusion!
The next several months went by and there were several other occasions where we saw these heinous doppelgangers (doo-doo-doo). Costco posted another picture of them. Some fitness guru guy posted a picture of them, staring at the Camera and saying: “Mike, Connie, Emily and little Mark wish you a happy holidays”. Curse them! I will find you doppelgangers!! (Doo-doo-doo).
One night we got a call from Adam Kazmierski our family photographer (adamkaz.com). He told us how he saw us on multiple websites and I said: “No! It isn’t us, but fowl satan spawn Doppelgangers (doo-doo-doo). He laughed and explained “No, I took your pictures, you sign a release and people buy the photos off my website. Those photos are you guys!” I was obfuscated. “Why would someone want to buy pictures of us?” Adam laughed…. “I don’t know man…I don’t know” As I lay to sleep I rested my head a little easier, knowing that night: there was only one Low family in the world. I breathed a little easier.
Well those are our two stories of terror. We hope you and your loved ones have a great 2009 and learn incredible lessons. We are grateful for the part you have played in our lives. We don’t believe knowing you was some odd cosmic coincidence, but rather we have been blessed with you in our lives. Thank you for being you! And have a blessed New Year!

Ryan, Alyssa, Emily and William Low!!