Merry Christmas from the Wallaces!

Dear Friends & Family,

Merry Christmas! Ryan and have had a wonderful year in 2009 and cannot believe that we have now been married for more than 6 months! The Lord has truly blessed us this past year.

We spent most of the first half of 2009 planning the biggest day of our lives – our wedding! The wedding, on June 20th, 2009, was absolutely wonderful and everything we could dream of. We were joined by many of our closest friends on a beautiful morning as we celebrated our marriage. When we left my parents’ home that afternoon, I was overwhelmed with how blessed we truly are! God has blessed us with friends! Thank you so much to each of you who were there to make our wedding day so special.

Ryan spent the week after our wedding studying for a final exam in chemistry as I began to fix up our home (Aiken Village apartment 24-C). We honeymooned the next weekend at a cabin at Tishomingo State Park. It was a beautiful weekend and such a nice break from studying and work.

This fall, Ryan began his first semester at Mississippi State and did great! Being out of school for several years made it a challenge to go back but he truly applied himself and had a successful semester! Classes ended the first of December and he has enjoyed doing website design for the Mississippi Home Educators Association as well as George Johnson, a friend realtor in Baton Rouge, LA. He has also kept up my Cooking with Ellen website over the holidays. God blessed him with web jobs from the day of his final exam up to the day he starts back school for the spring, which will be Wednesday, January 6th, 2010.

I (Ellen) have stayed busy since the wedding fixing up our little home (I almost have all the pictures hung that I want on the walls!) and working. I worked part time at a nursing home in Louisville for awhile but have now taken a full time job from home as a Diabetes Educator for Information and Quality Healthcare. I am the Golden Triangle Regional Project Leader and do diabetes training classes for Medicare recipients with diabetes. Though I haven’t started doing classes yet, I am already loving my job. The flexibility and great work environment have been so beneficial to me since the beginning of November. I was so blessed to find such a wonderful job opportunity!

Looking forward to 2010 … We have been making a few mental and written lists of goals, “to-do’s”, and things we’d like to do this next year. One is that we have used our Christmas money and received as gifts all the items needed to go tent camping. The first warm weekend of 2010, I hope to be out and about exploring God’s country in our new tent! We cannot wait for our Eureka Tetragon tent to come in and plan to thoroughly use it during our free time! We also have set forth plans for Bible studies and have bought a stack of Christian books for ourselves for Christmas about marriage and Bible study.

We pray that each of you that reads this had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010. God has been so faithful and blessed us so much. We pray that He does the same for each of you. Please stay in touch and feel free to come visit! We live on campus in married student housing at Mississippi State and love how close we are to everything in town.

With love,

Ellen & Ryan

thewallaces@ryanandellen.net

3 John 2 – “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”